It's not even Kindergarten, for Pete's Sake!

Today I woke up with a familiar pit in my stomach. A feeling I remember experiencing so many times as a kid, usually once a year, late August-Early September. The dreaded "first day of school nerves". Only today, instead of for me, the nerves were ever more intense because I was sending my boy off into the wild frontier of ... PRE-school!!
There were a lot of big fears that came with this first day of school...what to wear;will other people talk to me; will I be a cool kid this year; will the teachers like me; will I know anybody...and those were just the things I was worried about FOR ME, not Levi!
Levi's first words upon waking this morning were, "Mommy, are you going to be my driver to school?" "Yes, of course I will" "Will I be in my carseat?" "Yes, of course you will!" "ON THE SCHOOL BUS?" The poor guy, all this hype about school and he doesn't even get to ride the bus!
We arrived at school, Levi's excitement never waned, and started walking up the sidewalk of dread. With Mason on my hip and Levi holding my hand...or rather ME tightly gripping LEVI'S hand, we made our way into the building.
The teacher came out to greet all the parents and children and I totally, completely lost it! The tears just started falling. Levi looked up at me and I turned my head away, can you imagine if he, who was so brave and excited looked up to see me completely falling apart! I made my way into the classroom and helped Levi find his name tag, pin it to his shirt, and he looked at me with a big smile and said, "Can I go play now?" and that was it, he was gone...leaving me and a puddle of tears in his dust! One of the teachers smiled at me and said, "I think you should go now"...uh, yeah, you think? Since I am the only person, children included, with crocodile tears filling my face!
Mason and I left, went to the park to hang out with Lindsay and Ayla, and I was fine. When we went back to pick him up, I was receiving many sympathetic looks from the other parents, and I know they were just waiting for me to lose it again...I bet they had a pool going on over at the "cool parents table", but I didn't.
As soon as the door opened and Levi ran over to us with a huge smile on his face proclaiming, "mama, I didn't cry today!", I welled up again, but held it in! We came home, I gave my boy his favorite lunch, PB&J and we cuddled up on the couch for a bit, and suddenly, with my big boy in arms so proud of all he accomplished on his first day out of my nest, all was right with the world again.