A New Beginning

I am pleased to say that I got a lovely new job this week. It's very sad to be leaving my old one, which I loved, but marks an exciting new chapter in my life. As it does for J. I can't quite believe that the time has come for my baby to start playgroup, and that he is grown up enough to spend time away from his family in September. He will go for the two days i am at work. I am excited for him, and very nervous. I am not nervous, however, about him settling in. J is not a Mummy's boy by any stretch of the imagination. When trying to extract him from the park the other day I tried the traditional "ok, bye! Mummy and M are going home now" and walked to the gate. He called bye back and ran off to carry on playing. When he noticed I was waiting the other side of the gate, he yelled "what you doing mummy? Why aren't you at home?". Cue sniggering from the other mums at my completely ineffectual parenting technique. He will be absolutely fine when he starts. What I am actually nervous about is what he will be like when he gets there. Now, my beautiful son is lovely. He is funny, sunny and friendly. He loves both adults and children. But I am under no illusions. He is no angel. I can't possibly list all the the things he has done in the past year or so that cause my palms to go a bit sweaty when I think about unleashing him on the poor unsuspecting playgroup staff, but I'll give it a go.
1: At the stay and play at our village school, he escaped so many times that when he appeared he got greeted by a cheery "oh look, J is here, lets shut all the fire escapes and block off the kitchen!" - cue staff scurrying around madly to 'J proof' the room.
2: During one of those escapes, he wandered his way into a classroom and merrily joined in with a science lesson with a bunch of seven year olds, until his red faced mummy worked out where he was. The shame.
3: At the same stay and play, he worked out that he could stand on a stool to tip over the jugs of water. If I tried to mop it up discreetly he would jump up and down in the puddle and shout "uh oh mummy!" at the top of his lungs.
4: At the same stay and play he presented me on several occasions with a pile of nappies, wipes and drinks bottles he had pilfered from other people's changing bags, a triumphant smile on his face.
We haven't been back there since M was born. I can't think why. We do go to a few other village groups though. He managed to cram himself into a plastic highchair designed for a small doll at one of them last Thursday, then tried to make a passing toddler feed him plastic food. He couldn't understand why she wasn't complying and was just looking at him gone out. The very patient and lovely leader had to come up and tell me my errant toddler was jammed in a toy highchair, cue more blushes from me, as I was chatting with my friends and had no idea.
I'm wondering how I will explain to the staff that anything they own with four wheels also has to have a farmer to drive it. J will not take no for an answer. The toy fire engine must have a toy farmer to drive it and if there isn't one, or the proffered toy person is not farmer-esque enough, all hell breaks loose. Or that J loves to sing so much he's made up his own words to pretty much every song, which will get belted out at singing time, drowning out any other poor child's attempts.
Reading all that back, I have a plan for September.
Drop him off and run.