Natural Born Worrier

This week I did my first ever reading (at my daughter's kinder...that's Australian for nursery school), of my pre-school version of Three Billy Goats' Gruff, published by Ladybird a couple of years ago.

My pre-reading worries included:
What if the children get up and return to the Lego after the first page?
What if they yawn dramatically?
What if the teacher stops me halfway through because I'm mumbling and stuttering so appallingly that no one can make out a word?
What if I accidentally utter a swear word?
What if I have something funny on my face / up my nose and that's all the children can focus on?
And they start pointing and laughing and I don't know what's funny?
What if something in the story makes one of them cry? And then they all start crying?

So, you know, I was feeling pretty calm about it all.

As you will know if you're also a natural born worrier, it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. The children didn't move a muscle; my voice wasn't too shaky (though I did change my troll impression halfway through because I thought it might have been too scary...) and the only sound that could be heard was my daughter's voice quietly echoing mine because she's heard the damn thing so many times she knows it off by heart. I also had to move The Boy's considerable head out of the way a few times because he was blocking the pictures. When I'd finished, some of the children said "That was really good". They went back to their Lego. And I tried very hard to repress the urge to skip joyfully.

Will this experience help to alleviate the worries of the next reading?

Don't be daft.