My son has recently turned two. This has brought on a rather emotional state of being for myself and my husband as it means that a new phase in our life has arrived. Entering my son in a nursery school.

Now this has caused my normal obsessive compulsive disorder to accelerate at a rate never experienced before. I am admittedly a rather overprotective mother and the strict criteria I place on anything for my son has now resulted in a string of checklists and evaluation criteria for selecting just the right school.

This morning I arrived unannounced at a school close to our home in Johannesburg. I thought that as much as I appreciate open-days over weekends I wanted to experience the "normal day-to-day" at the prospective environment where my son will be filling his days.

I was met by a friendly teacher who handed her class over to a suitably qualified caretaker to take me through the routines, the meals, the classes and daily schedule and program. The happy, well mannered kids all greeted me as I entered the classes and the well kept and clean classrooms showed a level of dedication and a passion for kids. I started feeling a bit better about this "unknown" place and wondered whether my son will enjoy the friends and new activities.

I am scared but excited for my son that has spent the first two years of his life at home with our nanny. I feel sad that even with my best intentions and threats that I was not able to spend more time with him prior to starting this new journey. My career has kept me busy and I have made it my goal to work on a plan to be able to be more involved in this phase of his development.

So today I am filling in the application form, ensuring that the stationery list is added to the Christmas shopping list and ordering his teddy bear uniform from his new school. Now I only have to start practising not crying when I drop him off and getting used to the idea that my babby is not a babby anymore - he is now a mini-student at Crayon College. Sniff-Sniff