My son's first solo trip from the home came far too early

My mother always told me I’d need eyes in the back of my head once I become a mum.

While obviously I understood the phrase, I didn’t truly appreciate the sentiment until very recently.

Despite having been a mother for fifteen years, I have, thankfully, endured very few scares when it comes to my children’s whereabouts.

While getting lost in a supermarket or going momentarily missing during a family day out is a regular occurrence for many children, I have very few memories of my gang in this regard.

Until now, that is.

With Chris, Rebecca and Alex already attending school, my youngest son Nathaniel can’t wait to join his older brothers and sister and become a fully-fledged pupil.

Due to attend nursery in September, my little boy talks of little else.

He wears his Postman Pat backpack (a hand-me-down from his eldest brother and something he refuses to part with) with pride.

He asks me if his school friends like him even though he hasn’t made any yet.

He tells me loves his teacher even though he hasn’t met her.

And he requests I make his school lunch every morning in preparation for the big event in four weeks time.

Well, you get the picture.

So recently while I was crouched in front of a broken modem with a technician who I had called to the house, my youngest son toddled into the living room, announcing: “I go school now.”

Glancing upwards, I saw he was wearing his pyjamas and eagerly clutching the straps of his Postman Pat schoolbag which was perched high on his back.

“That’s right, I agreed. “You go school now.”

It was a sentence he uttered at least once every fifteen minutes so I assumed he was saying it for the benefit of our visiting technician.

Nathanial is determined everyone share in his joy, you see.

Looking bemused, the technician, also known as Alan, glanced up and said: “You’re a great boy for going to school during the summer, aren’t you?”

Content we had given him the attention he needed at that moment, I returned to the leaflet I had been given by Alan.

Minutes later, I led our guest into the hall in order to see him out only to find our front door wide open.

“Oh, that must have been me. I was carrying the box in and had no spare hands,” he said.

Stricken, I realised I was dealing with a young man who had no experience of living in a house with a toddler.

“Nathanial?” I called out, hearing the rising panic in my voice.

Catching on, Alan hesitantly offered: “You did say he could go to school….”

Dashing out the front door, I saw my three-year-old son making his way toward a main road at the entrance to our neighbourhood.

He was indeed making his way towards his new nursery wearing a pair of pyjamas, his beloved backpack and, inexplicably, a pair of his sister’s flipflops.

Thanking God I had seen him, and that this was one of the few ‘heart-in-my-mouth’ experiences I had endured as a mother, I rushed after him.

Scared to shout at him in case he instinctively rushed into traffic, I gently called his name and watched him turn around and wave.

“I just go school now!” he called.

Catching up with him, I told him we would go to the school together this afternoon if he promised never to leave the house without me or his daddy again.

I promised we could look through the nursery window, choose a place to sit and maybe even make a special school lunch to share if he promised never to do something which caused his entire life to flash in front of my eyes again.

He had stopped listening, but it reminded me I needed to start.