Our Buggy Blogger, mum to J (4), B (2) and S (8 months), faces the heartache of starting her firstborn in primary school.

It's been a long time in the making, but finally the moment we've been waiting for arrived: SOS … drum-roll … the Start of School.

After a long summer, we were as good as ready. (Bar a few glitches like learning the name of his school – in answer to an enquiring sales assistant in a well-known department store, J proudly replied that he was off to the 'John Lewis' school. Well, there is a John in it and we're not talking about the toilet.)

The uniforms had been bought, the trousers hemmed up, nametapes sewn in, a family pack of Kleenex bought for mummy and … gulp … we were ready for the Big Day.

And you know what? The first morning went like a breeze. Sure, I had to stifle a sniffle on seeing J preening about the living room in his pristine, too-big uniform, somehow both proud and bashful at the same time. But contrary to all expectations of being a wet rag in the playground, the First Morning was actually OK. J skipped to school like Julie Andrews on an Austrian film set. I managed a smile and a kiss goodbye without choking up my cornflakes. And J threw himself into the classroom fray with a vigour. Things were looking good.

But the buoyant mood deflated faster than you can say 'emotional rollercoaster'. What a week. From doorstep refusals to leave for school, to post-pick up hysterics culminating in vomit to … now here's a turnaround … cries of 'I want to stay' whilst furiously rattling the school gates. And that was just mummy.

But seriously, it's been one heck of a week of ups and downs and moments of agonising empathy. Notably, I couldn’t help but sympathise with the poor wee chap upon discovering the others are calling him 'Tiny'. (Wouldn't be so bad if mother of said child had donated 'tiny' genes but sadly I’m no size zero superwaif.)

Picking him up after his first school dinner also threw me back through the mists of time to lunches in my school’s corrugated-iron-roofed canteen – a heady combination of chaos and cabbage odours.

I was once again a quaking five-year-old standing before the principal dinner lady, a redoubtable matron clucking round all the kids ensuring they eat up all their greens.

On that first day she informed me that one of today's options (inspired by Saint Oliver apparently) was a kind of pasta curry... She assured me it had lentils in with the pasta and a spoonful of curry powder which several of the children took umbrage to. Can't blame them it sounds hideous. J very wisely chose the cottage pie option which he stolidly chewed through to the end.

Makes you feel a bit queasy thinking about it doesn’t it? Especially when you consider how many Smash and mince-meat platefuls the young trooper'll have to chomp through before his school days are over. Ergh, actually, can someone pass a bucket?

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