The hardest part

No, not a much loved song by Blondie, I’m talking about my 5 year old son achieving another first in his young life.

This morning at 8.30am, he climbed aboard a minibus with a group of other children who were heading off to an activity camp for their first day.

As I mentioned on Friday, we popped over to the place so as to make this morning that bit easier and now I’m glad we did as Joseph spent much of the weekend saying to me, “so, you’re not allowed on the coach with me?” In other words, please get n the coach with me Dad!

We got to the meeting point early and he was smiley and happy, right up to the point when the minibus pulled up and my hand got squeezed just that little bit tighter.

We queued up, I handed the necessary paperwork to the girl ‘in charge’ (who looked very young – no disrespect to the very young btw) and motioned Joseph onto the bus. He took his oversize rucksack and trod carefully over legs, bags and feet and made his way to the spare seats at the very back, choosing the window seat next to where I was stood on the pavement.

He was smiling bravely (hey, I was still crying my eyes out at primary school aged 8) and I was giving him as many thumbs up and “have a great time” faces as I possibly could without the other parents thinking I was clinically insane.

All too soon the gears crunched, the engine revved and the bus started to pull away.

I purposely didn’t walk along next to him, just stood and waved. I wondered if he would turn in his seat but with the shadows and all I couldn’t tell.

He seemed fine.

It was me that got into the car with a lump in my throat and tears threatening to spill out.

Useless!!

Let’s give the boy a big hand!