This morning I rode in the elevator with a young girl and her grandmother. I’m still a horrible judge of children’s ages when the child is older than my own but my guess is that the girl was somewhere in the 6-7 age range. She seemed sweet and a bit bashful in the big elevator with a couple of strangers.
The little girl walked into the elevator first and the grandmother followed with their shopping cart. In the grandmother’s efforts to squeeze in, she accidentally bumped the cart’s wheels into her granddaughter’s toes, eliciting an ‘Oww!’ from the young girl. The following conversation ensued:
Grandmother: I’m so sorry! Did I bump you?
Girl (almost inaudibly): yes
Grandmother: I’m sorry! Poor thing, does it hurt? Does it still hurt?
(the Grandmother went on a like this for a bit and I couldn’t help but smile at how sweet she was to the little girl)
Girl: yes
Grandmother: Do you want me to kiss it?
Girl: No! (with a tone that said something like ‘Are you crazy!?’)
At this, the two broke into a fit of giggles.
A very similar conversation happens almost daily in my house right now. Except that I get a resounding ‘yes!’ to my offers to kiss the boo boo. Someday, Baby will realize that she can move on from a fall without any help from me. Someday, she will be too embarrassed to let me kiss her bump or bruise in public. When that day comes, I hope we can giggle about how she is such a big kid now, like this little girl and her grandmother did.
In the meantime, I’ll savor every kiss that I get to plant on a boo boo.