One week ago Eleanor went back to school.  After two and a half months spent in quiet surroundings together with her closest family, she had to walk into a class room full of new classmates (and a few old ones) and a new teacher (who everybody says is amazing, and happens to be a real magician) and start a new chapter of her life.
When she turned around on that second day of 1st grade, waved to me and said “mum, you can go now”, I realized that she’s not my helpless little girl anymore. She is a little human who has just started a great journey of independence. Soon she’ll have her own opinions about more important things than what she wants for dinner or which colour is the prettiest.

As a parent I can just stand back, and hope, that we’re doing the right things and that she’ll turn out great. From now on I’ll have to watch her be happy, frustrated, angry and sad and have to let her fight her own battles and make her own decisions, without doing anything else than just being there to support her and helping her navigate through obstacles in her own life. It’s all I can do. That and making her a supergirl mask, that she can wear, when the butterflies in her stomach start speeding around a little too fast, or she just needs a little bit of extra power to get through the day. She says it gives her some extra strength when she has to do stuff like tiding up her room or make new friends at school.

Here’s how you make one for your child, should he or she also be in a bit of a need of some extra powers:

Cut out a paper mask-shape, and make sure the size and eye holes fit your child.

Pin the paper to a double layer of felt in your preferred color.

Cut out the two felt masks and either sew or glue them on top of each other.

Attach an elastic string  to both sides of the mask. I sewed the elastic string to a thin piece of felt, but this is not necessary.

Illustrations by Emily Winfield Martin