Finding Joy in Snarkville

I have a friend whose son is in <gasp> middle school, who tells my favorite kid/mom story.  This young man was in kindergarten or first grade and he told his mom one day, “Mom, I don’t think you should kiss me good-bye in front of the kids at school — it embarrasses them when you do that.”

She told me this story probably weeks after I met her, when Duke was just 2.  I know the day will come with a hug and kiss goodbye will be the worst thing I can do to him — up there with packing liver for lunch, I am sure.  But at the time I thought that was held for middle school and not early grade school.  So, of course I instantly took her words as cause for worry for how soon I’d be shunned from my son’s hugs and kisses.

Today, I took my newly minted six year old to the doctor for (ahem, I have something in my eye) a ‘physical’ — a school phyiscal.  You know, they call these visits Well-Baby (up to about 2 years old) then Well-Child (2 to 5 years old) visits until they start school….then we jump to ‘physicals.’  I have no idea when he is going to have an ‘annual check-up’ but frankly I think I’m not allowed in the room for that one.

The good news is that he is fine and healthy and growing.  There is no bad news, except I think I might be facing paying for med school since my son could not stop asking the doctor and the nurses about all their instruments, what they do, why they measure this or that.  He blew them away with his fascination.

Anyway, he is at summer camp this week and I had to take him late because of the doctor’s office.  I’d talked to the camp before and found out where they were going to be.  They weren’t there of course and I had to find his group.  He gets there and one of the girls asks him to join her team and he runs off.  I hand over the swim bag and the lunch and go to walk off.

Duke turns and chases after me.  He jumps into my arms and says, “I didn’t get my hug and kiss.”  “Buddy, I thought you didn’t need one, since you’d run off without it when we got here.  I’m sorry.”  “I can’t do this without a hug and a kiss.” Yup, I melted.

Maybe I have another year (two?) before it embarrasses the other children when I hug and kiss him.  But for now, my son still needs the power of a hug and a kiss to get through tough days at camp.

Happy Love Thursday.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Motherhood isn't for wimps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.