Have We Made a Huge Mistake?

I just left M with her new teacher in her new classroom at her new school. I was only there for a minute, and when I left she seemed happy, but when it appeared that parents were not going into school with their kids, her face had crinkled into tears. Last night she cried buckets, not because she didn't want to go to school--she loves school and she's been eagerly awaiting it for weeks--but because she was so scared of starting at a new school. Which I so totally understood.

M has been, overall, ecstatic about our move. She loves living in the city, she loves being back east, she loves getting to see her grandparents and cousins all the time. She loves the playground and the Chinese restaurant and the pond. She misses L a lot and S and E occasionally, but other than that, it's been pretty much see-ya-later to Red State.

But school is going to be the thing that makes it or breaks it. And all the indicators are good: she loves school, she's loved even the teachers that I've found profoundly mediocre, everyone says that this school is wonderful, she makes friends everywhere she goes, she has liked every kid she's met so far in Town (though I did suggest, the other day, when she was nervous about making friends, that perhaps the nine kids she has met so far are the only nice kids in Town, and every single other kid is mean--this is how we cheer up the children in our family).

Still, I can't tell you how many people have told me in the last six months that they moved in fourth grade and it was terrible. (Hmm, why are people telling me this?!) So while I'm confident in the specifics, I'm devastatingly anxious in the abstract.

Please let this not be the experience that crushes my perfect, brilliant, happy girl. Please let her find friends as good as she had in Red State. Please just let her have a good first day of school.

Updated to add: She had a great day. Phew. I guess it wasn't a huge mistake.