"To all the parents sending their kids off to their first day of school this week."

This week, thousands of mums and dads in Australia will send their babies off to school for the first time. About 300,000 little prodigies in neat, over-sized uniforms, looking like kids playing dress-up in grown-up clothes, will tentatively walk through the school gates.

It seems like only yesterday my husband and I made that exciting and daunting pilgrimage last year, with our last and youngest child under the wing of her big bro.

She bravely navigated her way among the parade of little feet in shiny black shoes, freshly-wiped faces, combed hair and well-groomed plaits – all weighed down like a baby turtle with her school bag big enough to fit her in.

As we reached the Prep building, parents gathered and shuffled outside nervously like suited penguins in a blizzard (all starting out well-dressed, before sinking to the occasional knicker-less tracksuit pant school run by the end of the year… or is that just me?), their fluffy chicks protected at their feet.

Together, this motley group of strangers, both young and old, connected for the first time. And our children embarked on this new stage in life amid a frenzy of hugging and kissing parent-paparazzi to the background din of “don’t they look cute?” and “good lucks!”.

But for each child and every family, this was their own special day and unique story – as it was for us, and is for all the families starting today.

The first day of school has been five-six years in the making. On the roller coaster ride of parenting, this is the moment we’ve anticipated and joked about for years: “I can’t wait for them to go to school!” On bad days, it couldn’t have come quick enough. On the good days, that day being one, and the many school drop mornings following, I looked at my little girl’s bewildered possum eyes and didn't want to ever let her go.

Like a quest for the Holy Grail, I still remember the preparation for that Big First Day.

Painstakingly ordering and re-mortgaging the houses (joke-ish) to pay for those soon-to-grow-into school uniforms; getting sore feet and conquering tantrums trying to find the perfect Cinderella-fitting shoes ("For the tenth time, we can’t buy the red sparkly heart ones for school!"); fighting off fellow crazy ‘back-to-school mothers’ at Target to get the last pair of bottle green size six gym shorts; making my eyes bleed ironing, sticking and writing our child's name 100 times onto labels in the wee hours, wishing I’d called her Bob.

No doubt this ritual has been carried out by millions of mothers before me and has been repeated by many more mums in recent weeks.

Then, there was the year leading up to the Big First Day. Like many other mothers, I interrogated our kinder teachers and friends like murder suspects, and did more research than for a PHD in criminology to determine whether my kids were 'school ready' and which school ticked all the boxes.

Making the wrong decision would, of course, result in lasting damage to my children, sentencing them to a lifetime of hiding under the bed covers, and me being sent to Mummy Prison for ever — or so I thought at the time. What a surprise; one year on, we all survived.

But the hardest work for me, and for many of the mums and dads pulling up to the school yard for the first time today, started long before that. In fact, from the moment we were slam-dunked into parenthood and rose to the challenge in survival mode – the best way we could. It’s been a long road travelled, full of love, joy and tears, that has got us all here today.

When I woke up my daughter this time last year, it was hard to imagine that just over a handful of years ago, she didn’t even have a name to put on labels. As she stepped out of bed, that she was the same unsettled bundle we tag-teamed holding in sleep-deprived arms. When packing her lunchbox, this was the suckling I fed every few hours throughout the night until my nipples blistered. When doing up her uniform, this was the little stinker whose exploding nappies we changed a million times.

Once on the school run, this little chatting person in the back seat was the same newborn we clipped into the car like an egg shell as we drove from the hospital at 10km/ph. As we walked through the gates holding hands, this was the toddler that waddled like an orangutang as she learned to walk. And as we scoured the coat pegs to find her name, this was the baby we patiently taught to speak her first words.

But what struck me when we walked into her classroom, among all these little children, thirsty to learn, was that none of them will ever realise how much they have taught us as parents on this journey.

When she sat in her small plastic seat in a classroom full of nerves, she looked to us for courage. But little did she know that, in fact, it was her and her brother who have taught me to step up as a mother and be brave.

And while she sat there quietly playing with the ‘warm up’ blocks, taking in everything around her, I reflected how through both of our children’s eyes we have learnt the biggest highs don’t necessarily come from reaching the tops of mountains or from jumping out of planes, but from the simplest elements of humanity and nature. A first word, a loose tooth, a consoling hug, a simple smile, a small puddle, a wave at a train, a rainbow sky, a dandelion flower, or a garden snail.

They have taught us that happiness in life can’t be found in ‘material things’ but in the comfort of their good health and wellbeing. And they have shown us the extraordinary capacity to love – an unconditional love you never could have imagined.

So to all the mums walking this trail this morning, here it is. Here is your long-awaited day. And now it’s time to kiss them on the cheek, wave goodbye, and pass them onto their teacher for the most incredible first year of school – first school readers, first writing sentences, first school concerts, first Japanese classes, first ‘Buddy Bear’, first school swimming… Rest assured, they are in good hands and they really will be alright.

As you walk back alone through those gates, not knowing whether to blub uncontrollably or punch the air and skip into the sunset, take the time to pat yourself on the back.

If you can, go and do something just for you (it’s five years overdue, after all) and celebrate this next big adventure for your child and for you — and the hope that they will learn as much in life as they have taught you.

...But hurry up, because in a handful of hours — at 3.35pm, in fact — it will feel like the little snot monkeys never even left.