Such a rare and beautiful sight. I've been thinking about this Dadku as my son will be starting his first day of school today, and I really hope this is how it will go today. I'm sure I have more butterflies in my stomach than he does about it. Today is the first step toward his eventual independence. He'll have his own friends and his own world separate from us. It's wonderful and terrifying at the same time. I'm no longer the father of a toddler. He's a preschooler now. He'll be in school from now straight through adulthood.
To prepare him to be on his own while he's at school, we've been reading "The Kissing Hand" by Audrey Penn. His new teacher recommended it. In the story, a little raccoon is nervous about going to school, so his mother shares the secret of the Kissing Hand. She gives him a kiss in his palm and wraps his fingers around it and tells him that if he ever misses her at school to hold his hand to his cheek so he can feel the kiss. At the end of the book the little raccoon kisses his mother's palm and folds his fingers around it and says "Now you have a kissing hand too." When we started reading the book, I thought it was to help Francis. Now I'm not so sure he's the one the teacher recommended it for.
Now I got to get him ready to go to school, and find the strength to leave once he's settled in and let him have his own world to himself.