You ever just feel so madly in love with your children you want to kiss them on the mouth? Not in an incestuous, inappropriate way, of course. More like a hungry, aching, gleeful sort of way. Like Cookie Monster, if you will. Me want to kiss delicious baby! Me cannot resist any longer! Num num num num num!
And I do kiss them on the mouth sometimes -- a quick parental kiss on those teeny, soft little lips. But who ever thought I'd want to do even that? When I was a kid, I hated it when adults tried to kiss me on the mouth. My grandfather always puckered up for a loud, sillly smack on the lips, which I obliged but never really felt comfortable with. (He smelled like cigarettes and had very high blood pressure, so his lips were always slightly purple.) I even complained if my parents' kisses on my cheek were too wet. "Too much slush," I'd say.
Before having children, I had no idea how physically connected to them I would feel. And I don't mean just the whole breastfeeding chapter, though that was lovely and snuggly, to be sure. (That is, until I couldn't get the girls to nurse for more than, like, thirty seconds before they were crawling off to do something more interesting.) I just mean the constant -- and growing, it seems -- desire to hug and hold and, yes, kiss them. It is fueled (oh, how it is fueled!) by the fact that they themselves have now become cuddly little creatures, who seem to need -- not just tolerate -- physical closeness: Elsa will reach up to be held and say "mommy!" with a smile, or come and sit in my lap to be read to. Sometimes Clio, in the midst of playing, will come over and lay a little hand on my shoulder or knee for a few minutes, just because. And when I kiss her good night, she reaches up and pulls my face down closer for a kiss. She pulls my face down! Can you blame me for wanting to gobble her up?
Maybe that's it. I don't actually want to kiss my children. I want to eat them.
I am mindful of the fact that as they grow older, there will be less and less cuddling and holding and smooching and squeezing. It's hard to believe that someday those chubby little feet won't be mine for the nibbling (and probably won't be chubby or little, either). There won't be long, giggling kisses goodnight. No one will sit in my lap. And when that time comes....well, I guess that's right around when parents start jonesing for grandchildren. And buy dogs to hold them over in the meantime.
But I'm guessing that when you become a grandparent, though you get to enjoy some of that sweet physicality again, it's not quite the same or as powerful as what you feel with your own children. So I am relishing this time of physical closeness with my daughters. And trying to keep myself from inadvertently ingesting any part of them in the process. Num num num num num!
