I'm Incredibly Neurotic About Kindergarten

Less than a month, y'all. In less than a month, I'll have my very first school-aged child. My (biggest) little man is going to Kindergarten.

He's excited. But I? Am terrified.

For some reason (most likely my sheer awesomeness) I was never teased about anything in school - not that I remember, anyway. Looking back, that's probably amazing, since I had like a quarter-sized gap in my teeth and eyebrows that made me look like the love child of Brooke Shields and Groucho Marx. (And you guys have seen my hair.)

Plus my mom dressed me in outfits like this:

Seriously, Mom? The collar and the bow? REALLY?

Anyway, for whatever reason (miracle?), I never had to worry about bullies or feel self-conscious - but I always felt sorry for the kids who did. And now that Colin is getting ready to start school, the thought of him being teased or made to feel sad - especially while I'm not there to protect him - just petrifies me. 

He's never been an outcast, exactly, but he's never totally fit in anywhere with other kids his age. I never sent him to preschool - something I fear may have been a mistake, for the social aspect if nothing else. But, like, at the playground or Sunday school or wherever else there are kids, Colin always wants to hang out with the adult in charge. He endlessly watches surgeries and plant documentaries on YouTube and tends to talk about those ... which makes the other kids (and sometimes the grownups too) look at him like he's completely crazy. 

And he stutters. It's fairly mild, and it comes and goes, but it's there. I'm so used to it that I hardly notice it most of the time - but I see the looks on the faces of waitresses and grocery store checkers when he's talking to them and he strains to get a word or two out. Their expressions always change. Sometimes they look like they think he's joking, sometimes they look like they're listening harder in order to understand him, but very few people look like they don't notice. Reason number 1,082 that I'm scared for him to be around people who might tease him.    

Now, for the record, let me just say that I love my son's quirks. All these things are endearing to me, and to everyone else who loves him: Colin just wouldn't be Colin if he were any other way. But I'm afraid that other kids might see them as reasons to tease. He's so gentle and passive that I'm afraid he'll be targeted, and won't do or say anything about it, and it'll just make him miserable.  

The icing on the cake? He's begging me, begging me, to let him grow his hair out like Justin Bieber's for school:

The problem is, this is Colin's hair:

I'm betting Justin Bieber was a lot more tamely coiffed as a baby.

I never fully understood why mothers cried on their children's first day of school, and I'm still not completely sure: is it that "my baby is growing up" feeling? Or are all mommies as neurotic and worried as me, afraid that they're sending their little lamb off to a lions' den? Am I just, like, being overdramatic?

Advice and experiences, please!