Sadness

This may well be the world's most disjointed post, I have no real clue what I want to say or how to articulate myself... basically I miss Boy and I'm finding this whole school thing really hard work.
It's not getting us all out the door every morning, we've always been quite good at that. My children both wake at 7am and are 'get up and go' kids. We're always fed and dressed before 8am, even at the weekend, so the school run itself isn't posing any real issues.
I think it's just the finality of it all. Over the summer I kept having odd days of heightened emotion where all I wanted to do was sit and stroke his hair or squeeze him so tight he complained...I wasn't looking forward to the first day of school but the need to be enthusiastic for him combined with the sense of excitement/adventure kept me on an even keel. Now the first day has come and gone, now he's 'in', I just feel totally deflated and lost. I feel about this like I do about losing my Dad, like it's some odd never-ending daydream and soon I'll wake up...except once again, this IS my new reality. Boy goes to school. That's just the way it is now.
BFF has had a really hard time with Baby Girl starting school this September, but I understood her upset because it's her third and final child and starting school means that BFF is now home alone all day long (albeit with 3 crazy dogs and a house it would probably take a week to clean top to bottom!) I didn't expect to feel the same emotions because, of course, I still have Baby at home to keep me occupied. Except I kind of do feel the same. I feel like my son is gone, he's slipped away slightly into a world of new experiences, good and bad, he's spending the majority of his waking hours with another person who he will learn to love and respect, he's up to all manner of things that I will never know about because he'll forget and never tell me. Just last week he fell and banged his face on the monkey bars...he didn't tell me until 48 hours later when I noticed a bruise in the bath. He didn't seem at all fazed by this, he's not a particularly fussy kid when he falls etc...but the thought of him smacking his face and noone noticing made me wail when I'd put him to bed.
This emotional state is also causing issues when he misbehaves! Husband can be a bit too quick to shout at the best of times but this weekend when we were all still fighting the remnants of this cold and feeling rotten, tempers got a little frayed and voices did get raised. In hindsight, this wasn't the end of the world and Boy had been acting up, but at the time I just wanted to scoop him up and sob at the injustice of it all.
I don't know what the answer is really, other than keeping mega busy Monday-Friday and ensuring our weekends are as restful, loving and cosy as possible. Am spending my rainy, depressed, dismal Monday morning googling activities for Baby and eating my body weight in Jammie Dodgers to make myself feel better. Here's hoping this grey cloud blows away soon...