If you and your pre-school aged child haven’t read The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn, you are totally missing out and need to get to a copy right away. It’s a tear jerker I tell you, a total 3 Kleenexer for sure! The first time I read it, I was standing in the middle of the children’s section at Barnes & Noble and balled my eyes out. That was back when Miss 5 was only 2 years old and school seemed like a distant thing. But now that she’s 5 and has just started Pre-K, we love this book more than ever!!! It’s a tender story of Chester the raccoon and his mama. Chester is nervous about starting school and being away from mama. Mama sweetly calms his fears by teaching Chester about the kissing hand. Each time they part, they kiss each other’s hands. If Chester (or mama) feels apprehensive or lonely he only has to touch his hand to his cheek and mama’s love will be there. Check out our Kissing Hand art activity we used a few years back for Father’s Day gifts.
Sending Miss 5 off to Pre-K came much sooner than I had ever imagined. As the dreaded day grew closer, my own apprehensions and fears mounted. I wanted to give my baby something special on her very first day of school ever. I knew that we were going to read The Kissing Hand before she left so started looking for a special charm for her to wear.
I fell in LOVE with this dainty sterling silver charm I found on Etsy! I bought one for Miss 5 and one for myself. I put them on chains for us to wear every time we are apart. I presented it to her on the morning of her first day of Pre-K just after we read The Kissing Hand. I love that daddy captured the moment for us. I’m not going to lie, I think the charm is more calming for me then for Miss 5.
Things are going smoothly as we enter into our 2nd month of Pre-K. We have a nice routine, with The Kissing Hand surprisingly still being a part of. Each afternoon, we drive the short 3 minutes to the elementary school. We pull into the drop-off line in front of the school. We can see the Pre-K and Kindergarten playgrounds. Miss 5 wonders which one the will play on that day. I reach into the backseat and unbuckle her from her car seat. She gets out and comes to sit on “the hump” between the driver and passenger seat. As she watches her classmates that are walkers arrive, we read a few pages from our favorite series, The Boxcar Children (post coming soon). Eventually we see the smiles and waves of the teacher as she happily emerges from the building to greet her arriving students. Miss 5 excitedly throws on her enormous unicorn backpack! And then…. my heart melts every time she does this…. she shouts “Kissing Hand!” as she hurriedly kisses my hand while shoving her own to my lips for a kiss. Baby sister, Miss 2, has caught on to this beloved part of our routine and has now begun shouting, “Hand! Hand!” as she awaits big sister’s hand kisses.
