Last Wednesday was Aviv's first day of kindergarten. It’s a milestone I’ve alternately dreaded and desired for at least a year now.

Like so many other things, the anticipation was worse than the reality.

For sure, I’m a little bit in denial. He attended a month of summer camp that lasted until 3:30, so it’s not like I’m unaccustomed to him being away for so many hours.

But there’s something about kindergarten that is worlds apart.

My son’s preschool teacher summed it up when she said that what made her so sad about her son starting school was that he was setting off on an adventure whose every detail she would no longer know – unless he chose to tell her.

It’s the start to a journey, one which my son embarks upon with all his baby teeth intact and a lipsticked love letter from me nestled in his backpack. When he arrives at his destination, wherever it may be, it will be with a whole new smile and, possibly, a love letter from someone other than his mother. He’s already one of the tallest 5-year-olds I know, but when he ends his academic voyage, he’ll be really big and presumably really tall. All grown up.

Of course, that’s what I want for him.

And even though he doesn’t want that for himself now, I know he will eventually.

Ever since preschool ended, he’s been talking about kindergarten with the same disdain my daughter employs when I coax her to eat spinach: It’s awful. I’m going to hate it.

He asked how long school lasts. Six hours, I told him. He tried to negotiate: Can’t I go for six minutes instead?

He asked again how long school lasts, but this time he inquired about how many years he’d be pressed into scholastic service. At least 13, I told him.

“Just think and think and think about 13 years,” he said. “That’s not much long.”

I couldn’t agree more.

It was pouring rain when we left to take him to school. We piled into the minivan, Aviv accompanied by baby sister and middle sister and mom and dad. In the lobby, someone pinned a nametag on him. We made our way to the kindergarten hall.

“Hi, Aviv,” said a teacher, pronouncing his name correctly.

Then that teacher took him snugly by the hand and led him into her classroom. There was no hard hug as I held back tears, no desperate kiss, no teary goodbye. No goodbye at all, actually.

I was stunned.

I had, just that morning, lectured him on the importance of being assertive. He has a tendency to let kids take toys from him without speaking up, to keep his mouth shut even if he’s uncomfortable with what’s happening to him.

“If you don’t like what someone’s doing to you,” I instructed, “you say, ‘Stop it! I don’t like that,’ in a strong voice.”

Yet I didn’t say a word as my firstborn disappeared. I just watched.

When I returned home, I read baby Orli “One, Two, Three” by Sandra Boynton, the same book, now dog-eared, that I read to baby Aviv before his morning naps. “One is good for a quiet walk, two is right for a quiet talk.”

He and I have had lots of quiet and some very lively talks lately about kindergarten.

He’s worried the day will be too long. (It is.) He’s worried I won’t be at the bus stop to pick him up. (I will.)

For weeks now, he’s queried me about what he should do if I’m AWOL when the bus drops him off in the afternoon. We talked about all the neighbors who would be happy to help him. We reviewed my cell phone number. And I told him I’d be there, as I always have been, whenever and wherever I’m supposed to pick him up.

Still, he refused to believe.

So I decided to turn the tables. Tell me exactly what you want to happen, I said. He described his vision: him peeking out the window of the schoolbus, spying me standing on the corner. Him descending the steps, personalized backpack clinging to his shoulders. Him leaping into my arms.

It was like a scene out of a movie.

The way it played out on a muggy August afternoon couldn’t have been more perfectly scripted.

My husband, who’d left work early, stood by the side of the road with the video camera. Our daughter clutched a sign that said, “You did it! We love you!” The bus barreled into view, braked and deposited our son on the asphalt.

I scooped him up. School was awesome, he proclaimed. “I didn’t even think about you,” he said.

He’d made three, no four, new friends. Once, but only once, had he peeked at his love note. He couldn’t wait to go back.

Later that night, as I huggled (hug + snuggle) him in bed, he shared more details of his day, like how those school lunches had looked really good in comparison to his bagged victuals and how the teacher had “forced” all the kids to go to the bathroom before lunch, even if they really, really didn’t have to.

He yawned and cribbed a line from “Take A Kiss to School,” a book we’d read recently about a mole whose mother tucks a dozen kisses into his pocket on his first day of kindergarten. The kisses gave Digby the Mole confidence and me the idea for the love letter I put in Aviv’s bag.

“I hope schoolboys aren’t too big for good-night kisses,” Aviv said, even though he already knew the answer.

Bonnie appears every Monday on TriangleMom2Mom.