First kiss draws an audience

Our son got his first kiss last Sunday from a non-related female person of the same age. Or, rather, he resoundedly and enthusiastically both gave and received his first kiss.

I would had found it rather adorable myself had it not been performed at the beginning of the Sunday church service in the aisle in the middle of the Sanctuary, witnessed by numerous singing pious people.

My son is three years old, apparently a Don Juan in the making. His father couldn’t be prouder, and fantasizes his son is carrying on some proud male tradition that resonates on his side of the family tree.

My husband is apparently a Don Quixote in the making.

The object of my son’s fixation was a cherubic blue-eyed three-year girl, who had blonde hair in ringlets encircling her head. I do want it noted, in the interest of fairness, that she received his kiss delightedly and also returned it with enthusiasm.

My husband was unable to witness this memorable event, due to the unforeseen fact that someone in our house the night before had left her car’s headlights on and therefore had to use her husband’s truck to make it to church in time to teach Sunday school.

Aforementioned husband had been intending to attend church later in time for the service, until aforementioned wife called him from aforementioned church to mention that he had no vehicle with which to attend the service. Apparently, she accidentally forgot to tell him when she left that she was taking his truck and that her car wasn’t starting.

My bad.

But he did get to watch the Steeler’s game that afternoon from the beginning. Had he attended church, he would have missed the first quarter. And based on the way the game turned out, I’m pretty positive he still did a lot of praying.

It was just at home instead of at church.

And he missed seeing our little boy, now referred to as “Stud Muffin” by several of the teenagers I teach Sunday School to, give his first kiss.

I was sitting beside the little girl’s mother that morning, as well as her brother and his wife. We were all standing and singing the opening hymn when the kiss occurred, and all of us missed at least two verses in the song due to muffled hysterical laughter. While I thought it was just obvious to us, apparently the affectionate antics of our preschoolers were witnessed by more people than I realized.

Multiple people came up to me after church to discuss what they had seen with laughter in their voices, and the little girl’s mother and I discussed the possibility of betrothing the two children now so as not to worry about future things like dating and girlfriends/boyfriends. We figured if we just got it over with now, we would have fewer worries as the years rolled by.

My husband, however, strenuously objected.

Apparently, he’s a firm believer that little boys should be free to kiss little girls (and puppies and teddy bears and the occasional belly button of their baby sister) for as long as they can get away with it, provided said little girls have no objections.

At this point, I told my husband the story of my big brother’s incident when he was in kindergarten. My brother, on his very first day of school, went a wee bit wild on the playground at his first recess and started chasing and kissing every little girl he could find. When he got to the cute little only daughter of an Alaska State Trooper, he swooped in for a 5-year old kiss and she promptly decked him.

My brother is renown at that school for being the only kindergartner ever spanked by the principal on the first day of school,

Yes, that occurred in the days when children could actually get spanked in school for acting up. To his credit, my brother never ran around kissing girls again . . . well, until high school. And the little girl who socked him remains best friends with our family to this day.

I told my husband this story in the hopes that he might be aware of the fact that little boys should not run around kissing little girls.

My husband only heard that our son is destined to be a Stud Muffin from both sides of the family.

I think I might leave our son home with his dad this Sunday to watch football. It’s male bonding with less embarrassment.

Then again, maybe Stud Muffin could use a few more Sunday School lessons.

Tiffany Horvath is the mother of two and the stepmother of one. Her husband, Drew, was deployed in Iraq and returned in December. She writes every Sunday abut life at home for the wife of a deployed soldier.