Remember your first kiss?  Paul G. our neighbor’s son who lived up the road, kissed me in his parents barn when I was 12 years old.  I ran home, got in my closet, called my best friend and promptly gave her all the gory details.  It was gross and grand all at the same time, my life would never be the same.  I didn’t date Paul, my first ‘real’ boyfriend was an adorable slightly heavyset boy I met at 4-H camp.  We made a good pair considering I was pretty heavyset myself at that point.  He drove an old, bright red Chevrolet pick-up truck and I thought he hung the moon.  Until I went to Junior college and started dating Bryan.  He hung the moon until I found out he was dating a volleyball player behind my back that would do more than just kiss.  Le sigh. After that there were a series of boyfriends and I practiced kissing all of them until I thought I’d become fairly decent at the whole process and it no longer terrified me.  It terrified my father though, who caught me smooching on the living room sofa one afternoon when I was 16 years old.  That afternoon I think we all were terrified, my boyfriend most of all.  Poor guy.

As a married 30-something I no longer have to worry about kissing boys, my husband does a wonderful job of keeping my lips occupied.  My Addie, on the other hand……….Addie just turned six years old and has fallen madly in love with Jimmy.  Jimmy is 5 years old and has the longest eyelashes on planet earth.  Our trouble started about 2 months ago when they were caught holding hands on the swing.  Then we found them in the back of car playing with a kitten, having a simply grand time and giggling like goof-balls.  Two peas in a pod who get along with nary a cross word or mad look.  At church on Sunday Addie goes into class and sits across from Jimmy immediately thinks the better of it and goes around the table to sit beside him.  At lunch my husband jokingly tells Jimmy “You better not be kissing my daughter” .  Before the poor kid can answer Addie pipes up “He didn’t kiss me, I kissed him!”.  The entire table burst out in laughter!  Poor Jimmy doesn’t stand a chance……

Rob took Addie aside when we got home and explained to her that she couldn’t be kissing boys.  “You don’t need to kiss on any boys, okay Addie?”  …..Silence……. “Okay Addie?” ……Silence and Demon Glare…… “Okay”.  It was the saddest, most depressing “okay” I think I’ve heard in all my born days.  It was completely mournful.  We didn’t bother to tell her that she couldn’t kiss boys RIGHT NOW, that it wasn’t a life-long ban on lip to cheek contact.  Just a not-until-you-are-40-married-and-I-get-to-pick-your-husband ban.  Which isn’t over-bearing, over-protective or restrictive is it?

I didn’t think so………….