Southern Girl...Southern World

There are two red bins full of pre-school supplies on my kitchen table...fat pencils, fat markers, fat crayons, and blunt-edge scissors. Tomorrow is my son's first day of school, and there's much for a mother to worry about. He's coming in at the middle of the year...what if the other four-year olds have already formed cemented alliances that refuse to envelope him? What if the teacher doesn't protect his little feelings? What if he does completely offensive little things that get on her nerves? I hear my own mother's words reverberating..."Nobody's going to love you like your mama!" She was right, of course.

On my own first day of school, as I recall, I was supposed to wait for my older brother to walk me home. In my truly independent fashion, I ran all the way home by myself as soon as school let out. I wanted to prove to everyone that I didn't need anyone to walk me home. About twenty minutes after I'd arrived home, my brother came running in, breathless, exclaiming, "I couldn't find her! I couldn't find her!" I hope my own son doesn't feel the need for such blatant shows of independence. (: It just might wreck me.