COURTNEY PERRY/DMN

Matthew Clark, 6, gives a secret 'I love you' handshake to mom Michelle Clark on his first day of kindergarten Monday at Butler Elementary School in Arlington.

Michelle Clark waited for it, that moment when she'd know exactly how she and her son Matthew would part.

They rehearsed it, talked about it.

The uncertainty hung there, suspended until she and her husband, Cliff, ushered their soft-spoken 6-year-old into Mrs. Davidson's kindergarten class at Arlington's Butler Elementary School at 8:26 a.m. Monday.

When Matthew, her second child and her first boy, was in preschool, he made it clear that hugs from mom in front of his friends were just not happening anymore.

They created a series of macho fist touches and hand taps. But this year, even that was too much.

"The old handshake is out," said Ms. Clark, shaking her head so decisively that her blond hair sweeps across her face.

So they developed a secret handshake: three quick squeezes for "I love you" and an imperceptible palm scratch.

Through his pancake breakfast, his struggle to unknot his tennis shoe double-knots and his "take the picture, mom" grimace in his camouflage backpack, Ms. Clark reflected.

"School changes them," said Ms. Clark, 39, who also has an 8-year-old daughter, Christian, and a 2-year-old son, Andrew. "They get so independent. And you want that. So we worked out a good compromise between Mom needing some love and him needing his independence."

Inside the school, Mom and son wade through the swarm of parents to his classroom. There, Matthew gets a hug from a teacher's assistant on the way to his assigned table.

Mom sticks his name tag to his red-and-navy-blue Butler Broncos T-shirt. Matthew worries about when to give his teacher his lunch money.

Then, his mom leans over close to his ear and whispers: "You ready?"

He smiles at her and they execute their silent send-off. For good measure, she sneaks in a kiss to the side of his tousled blond head.

And he doesn't squirm away.