Are you sure you're completely ready for school?

Surviving the Summer: It seems to come around quicker each year, but it's important not to be too complacent. After all, for veteran parents it might be the 99th time around the block, but for each child it's a first. So make sure you read all the bits and pieces, won't you? It's just so tempting to assume that nothing ever changes.

Last year should have been a good one for us. I was free, and I had nothing to do except sort out my children, including our youngest, who was heading into junior infants.

I hadn't gone to the introductory meeting, but why would I need to? After all, we already had three boys in the school, and four years before, when I had gone to the meeting for the second youngest, I had felt like Methuselah in with all the young mothers. That night, I couldn't bear the thought that I'd be doing it again four years later when the baby would be due to start. I complained so much to all and sundry about it over the next few days that someone eventually suggested a rather obvious solution: "Don't go. They're not going to tell you anything you haven't heard before."

What a great solution, I thought. Why hadn't I thought of it myself? But I thought of it again four years later when the letter came, and so I stayed away.

But I did all the right things, including the trek into the uniform shop. The queues - aren't they just terrible? I was like a witch when I finally made it to the counter, and was very short with the woman telling me the uniform wasn't required until first class.

"That's the girls. I don't need a smock, I just want a jumper for a boy."

So I got my jumper, and (courtesy of the chain store) the shirt and trousers. I even dressed him up in them to check they were all right. He was just gorgeous. I knew, of course, that we would hardly ever see him in them - the school also has a tracksuit, and as soon as tracksuit days are settled and the children and parents become comfortable with them, the uniform tends to take a back seat. But still, I reckoned that for two weeks at least, he would be seriously smart and respectable.

What a strange feeling it was to be organised. I hardly knew what to do with myself.

And so to Sunday afternoon, the day before school was due to start. It happened that one of my sons was being dropped home by the mother of one of his friends. It also happens that mother is a teacher in the school.

"Is Fergus all set for tomorrow?" she asked. "Is he looking forward to big school?"

"Big time," I replied. "He's full of it, and he looks really sweet in his uniform."

"Uniform? But they don't wear the uniform in junior or senior infants. It's just the tracksuit all the time now."

Just the tracksuit? But I didn't have a tracksuit. When had they changed? And why had they changed? And why hadn't anyone told me?

I vaguely remember her melting back into the car in fear and trembling at the fierce reaction she got to the innocent inquiry: "Did they not explain it all at the meeting for new parents?"

So there we were. Sunday afternoon. Monday morning start. One useless uniform. No useful tracksuit. Not even an old and worn-out tracksuit from bigger brothers, because "efficient" mother had thrown them all away. In the garden was one agitated mother, and in the house was one very opinionated young man who was most certainly not expecting to go to big school dressed differently from every other young man in his new class.

Of course there are some advantages to having been around the block. For example, you may know the person who sells the tracksuits, who you can ring and plead with to come in to the school at 8.30 a.m. the next day to open up specially to sell you one. "Yes I realise now you were there all last week. I'm really sorry, but I'd be really, really grateful."

So she does, and off you and your young man go. By 8.35 a.m. he is perfectly dressed, and by 8.36 a.m. you are first in the junior infants line. And you're first for quite a while, because the other disclosure in the meeting for new parents was that for the first few days, junior infants weren't going to start until later than everyone else - at 9.30 a.m..

He survived. In fact, he barely noticed it at all. I was something of a basket case, however.

So, for your own sakes, please remember: try to make the meeting. Or at least read the letters.

• Caroline Murphy is a broadcaster and mother of six