All Out of Love

April 24, 2011

All Out of Love

Apparently, I’ve run out of kisses.

If this pronouncement were true I’m certain it would not be met with a great deal of enthusiasm from my husband, but since it’s out of the mouth of our four-year-old, I’m betting we can transcend the problem. I was just informed of this deficit after I attempted to plant a noisy one on my youngest son’s forehead, and was met with such writhing and wriggling away from my puckered lips I figured I must have something in my teeth. As I step away to grimace at Jeff and confirm this isn’t true, Zach rears back up and yells, “You can’t kiss me ever again, you’re OUT of them!”  He then happily resumes eating his ham and potatoes, oblivious to the amused looks his parents are trading between them.

Damn. Some days all I have left are chocolate, wine, and kisses. Sucks for me.

Never one to shy away from an issue, Jeff bravely decides to investigate. He leans over the kitchen counter with an authoritarian air, and says to our little imp, “Mommy, didn’t run out, see, she’s going to give me one right now.”

Hah. Jeff is a man never to miss an opportunity.

I stroll over to prove him right, and before I’ve completed two steps I hear “NO!!!!  SHE RAN OUT!!!  I HAVE TO GO TO THE KISSES STORE FIRST!”, and I turn back to see my second son straining forward from his seat at the table, arms outstretched as he tries to rein me in. “COME BACK MOMMY, COME BACK!”, he cries, and I am compelled to smile at my thwarted spouse and then obey my baby’s command. I return to him, sit down, and ask Zach when he’ll find time in his schedule to make a “kisses run”. He graces me with that benevolent stare that conveys something in between “I’ve got it Mommy” and “what a stupid question”,and replies, “I already go’ed there”.

Reconciling the past tense with the present remains a goal.

I share my delight with him that he’s made this purchase and angle in to deliver my smooch, but am instead met with “the hand” (how this of all things managed to survive the 80’s, I’ll never know). Zach looks at me, and in a calmly chastising tone of voice says, “No Mommy, I have to FEED them to you first”.

Of course you do.

I submit to his demands and bend toward him, and with great gusto he rips the kisses out of his pocket, and rather violently stuffs them into my yawning mouth. He is quite pleased with himself, my little man, and subsequently allows me to communicate my love to him, his brother, and his relieved father in our traditional manner. I deliver my last kiss to him with a flourish, then reach down to embrace him, for I’ve vowed never to take for granted his ventures into the land of imagination, and this trip has been particularly amusing. The little bugger shies away from me again however, regards me with great suspicion, and shouts “NO MOMMY, YOU ARE OUT OF HUGS TOO!”

And I have to admit, for a woman who never fully embraced the single digit crowd, I am entranced by my youngest’s immersion within the land of make-believe.

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