She Kissed Me

The first kiss... an unusual milestone to record. I don’t see a sticker for it in the baby calendar and yet I have faint memories of all my other babies kissing me sometime in that first year. Looking back I see that I never wrote it down in their baby books. I suppose that without prompting, I took it for granted.

I have been kissing Kimani since the day she was born. I can’t help myself. She is silky-skinned and delicious. For the most part she does not tolerate my advances. She turns her head, pushes me away, squeals “Nooo, noooo.” I have stopped taking it personally, maybe even stopped yearning for her to let me. But I have not stopped doing it... pressing my lips into her bare skin.

I haven’t stopped asking for kisses either. It is not like I beg everyday or anything but I do make it a point to request a kiss from her now and again. The answer is always no. That refusal hurts worse than most anything else in my world right now.

What is a kiss anyway? An expression, a communication, a message... a simple act that represents something else. The gesture is lost on her as are most things that come in disguise.

Autumn kisses me everyday, whenever she can, all day long. When I lift her out of her crib, smackeroo... she plants one on me. While she is sitting on the potty she leans in and “Muah” gets me. When I enter a room, whoosh... she blows one to me. I remember when they handed Autumn to me in that little office space of baby house 1 in Vorzel... I pulled her close and kissed the side of her face. Though she did not kiss me back, she has been making up for it ever since she figured out what kisses are for.

Truth be told though, a thousand baby kisses cannot make up for one Kimani kiss, one simple kiss that would mean so much.



On Friday, March 30th, in the late afternoon, I stood next to the kitchen table with my husband. We were looking at something I can’t even recall when I felt a tug from behind on my shirt. Kimani was in her highchair and she was pulling at me, with both hands. I turned toward her and leaned down a little to see what she wanted. She reached up and grabbed a fistful of my hair and then yanked me down close to her. Then she opened her mouth and tipped her face up to me. She kissed me... not once but twice.

She kissed me. She kissed me. She kissed me. She kissed me. Like a teenager swept away by love’s first touch, I hooted and hollered it, “She kissed me, did you see that? She kissed me!”

My God, I am so thankful... she kissed me.