My son has taken to wiping off his kisses. If I ask him for a kiss, he will obediently raise his lips and then immediately wipe the back of his hand across his mouth. Although it is completely ridiculous for this to upset me, my heart sinks just a tiny bit at this little act of rejection.

Harry spent this weekend with his paternal grandmother – his Southern “Mimi.” At least his displays of independence are an equal-opportunity affair, but my mother-in-law’s reaction was more circumspect – “Oh, baby, you can’t wipe off my kisses, you are only rubbing them in,” she laughs to him.

I came back from a girl weekend with Charlotte and Amy-Renee to pick Harry up from his uncle’s gym, where he was happily expending all of his abundant energy running around on the gymnastics equipment. As we were visiting, Amy-Renee, his surrogate aunt, scooped him up to plant long-delayed kisses on his little face. Harry put the usual defiant hand to his lips and wiped and then rubbed his hand down to his little chest.

“I am rubbing them in, right down to my heart.”

And right down into ours.