As all-business as a first-day kindergartener can possibly be in the morning, my son pulls on his Power Rangers T-shirt, grabs his SpongeBob SquarePants lunchbox and crawls among the newspapers, banana peels and running shoes that I call my car.

I'd like to catch you all up on a commentary I wrote a year ago that carried the headline "Is the Little Fish Ready for the Big Pond?" My wife and I had debated whether to start our son, Aaron, in kindergarten last fall because he turned 5 on Aug. 22, which slid him just under the Sept. 1 cutoff date. I had the biggest misgivings about starting him because I didn't want him being the smallest and the youngest, and because boys mature later than girls anyway.

To make a long story short, we waited. So at age 6, our red-haired, smiling baby left the nest for kindergarten Monday.

Is he ready now? Well, certainly more than he would have been last year. His extra year at a new preschool and five weeks at yet another venue, a summer camp, have him as prepared as he'll ever be.

We knew we did the right thing back in December, when his preschool teachers talked about how he was a leader in class, listened well and could do most of the boyish things his classmates did on the playground. He felt like he belonged.

But Monday it became time to belong all over again.

I drive up to the overflow traffic at our school and park what seems like a mile away. It's 7:40 and his first steps to kindergarten begin, on a sunny morning with volunteers everywhere in orange vests, pointing out directions.

I see other parents hustling their children along, but today I'm more than happy to dawdle. We follow the blue line to our pod of classrooms, where parents are standing with their children, all waiting for the doors of academia to open for the very first time. Not as many video cameras as you'd expect, and all the children walking, so, so independently.

Another boy checks out Aaron's backpack, and aggressively nudges it back toward Aaron, unintentionally bonking him on the nose. My son is known to tear up easily, and for a second I see an emotional wobble, but he gets over it quickly. I wonder whether he would have handled it as well at this time a year ago.

I break the apparent unwritten first-day code, picking up my son and hugging him close, not for his sake, but for mine. He's usually a chatterbox, but today he doesn't have much to say, and rests his head silently on my shoulder.

I have not one single intelligent word of advice, and even if I did delivering them through a cracking voice won't help. I know wondering "where did the years go" is universal, but in my case it's particularly haunting -- because we had that extra one.

Our teacher waves us into our room, which is an educational Disneyland of colors, pictures and words. So much to learn: letters, numbers and manners. We've worked on all three, now we'll see how we do when it counts. How will he (OK, we) stack up? For a moment I catch myself sizing up his classmates like a new player at the park checks out the competition at a pickup basketball game.

But at least I'm not as bad as my friend Scot in St. Louis, who already is calling Stanford as he maps strategy for his 4-year-old son. Scot's train is running like this: Ask Stanford what high schools they like in St. Louis, then call those high schools and ask what middle schools are the best. Then, of course, call the middle schools to find out ... their elementary schools. So, sanity is relative.

Aaron works his way through the pack of children to put his backpack in his cubbyhole and I stand off at a distance, quietly encouraging his independence. But for a moment he's lost between the mass of parents, kids and desks, and during that instant I feel like I'm the panicked parent at the shopping mall, instead of a dad in a secure classroom.

He sits primly at his desk, ignoring the fresh crayons and looking down the barrel of the start of his formal education. A confident 46-pound left-hander with a quick brain and a good heart.

The teacher finally announces that it's time for parents to leave, and I pick up my son and hold him close. Then a little bit closer. Those loosely scheduled days of just a boy and a dad hanging out seem oh-so-distant right now.

"Put me down, Daddy," he says. "It's time for school."