Kissing Lessons

Our son has come to love what he calls "true life stories."

He prefers stories with danger, or at least heightened emotion. So it's a lot of "tell me about the time you broke your jaw," and "tell me about that time that Grandpa was so angry at you," and "tell me about the time you and Aunt Tracy got grounded."

But the one story that has stayed in the rotation despite its relative lack of dramatic tension is the story of our teaching him how to kiss.

One day last year, when he was four, he was goofing around and gave me, instead of the usual smooch, a giant, sloppy, open-mouthed slobber.

"D," I rebuked, "that's a baby kiss. You're not a baby anymore; I want your big boy kisses."

He was fascinated. How is that a baby kiss? "Well, when you were a baby, you wanted to kiss us, but you didn't know how, so you started like this [open-mouthed kiss ala lamprey eel]. Then we told you to put your lips together, but you did this [small raspberry]. Then we told you to put your lips together and smooch, like this [regular little boy kiss], and you practiced and practiced until you could do it! And ever since then you've been a great kisser."

So now my five year old thinks he's a great kisser.

I am trying to imagine a day in the not-so-distant future when he and I have a conversation about grown-up kisses, and how they're a little bit like baby kisses, except you use your tongue, but only if the other person likes that, and for heaven's sake don't send your tongue in like a dog trying to chase a rabbit down a hole, and while you're at it have you flossed yet today, and not everyone is in the mood for kisses all the time, even if you both love each other more than anything, blah blah blah. Yikes.

Thankfully, for now, I only have to tell – over and over again – the true life story of how we taught the baby to kiss.

(Thanks to the women of Sunday Scribblings

for their continuing inspiration.)
Update: I told D about this story and he demonstrated a baby kiss
just to prove that he still knows how. Blech!

"Sunday+Scribblings" kiss