The Kissing Bandit

The Short One has always been a little manly man. He never liked kissing very much. At most he will tolerate kisses on the cheek or forehead. Occasionally, if accompanied by interesting facial expressions and noises, he will find a kiss on the lips funny, but that's been about it. More often, he will try to avoid them. Every time we visit the pediatrician, the nurse (who has a grandson about his age) asks me if the S.O. has started kissing and hugging his stuffed toys, and I have to reply, "Nope. Head butts." Even when he was an infant, he much preferred little head butts to kissing (and I don't mean head banging - he was never one to head bang, thank goodness). He has a large stuffed donkey that my cousin gave him - he will go up and give the donkey (it's still bigger than he is) a nice firm head butt on the forehead by way of greeting.

So, you can imagine my surprise, when, during a rousing session of watching Sesame Street the other day, he crawled in my lap and started pressing his lips to my forehead. I was so accustomed to not receiving kisses that it took me a moment to figure out what he was doing. After four of five times, the penny dropped, and I exclaimed "Are you giving me a kiss?!?", at which point I received a cute little smooch on the lips. I was so happy, I must confess that I sniffled a little. (I try not to give the S.O. any further ammunition with which to try to wrap me around his wee fingers - he's already mastered the tactical use of the engaging smile - but it was impossible this time.) The S.O. has declined to kiss Mom or Dad again after that incident, but I notice that he's been going around giving generous smackers to the donkey and the rest of his stuffed animals.

(Just between you and me, I think we have a Kissing Bandit in the house, now. It's terribly exciting!)