I don’t recall what occasioned it, but I got it in my mind a couple days ago that we should pick up some new books for Ava, namely Mr. Popper’s Penguins and The Trumpet Of The Swan. Someone read these to me when I was younger, and memories of them came rushing back recently.
Ava loves books about wildlife, and especially birds, it seems, so these two titles seemed perfect for her. And they’re her first chapter books, too, long on words but short on pictures. We started with Trumpet Of The Swan this morning while she ate her peanut butter and honey toast for breakfast. She was rapt as I went through the first three chapters, just up to the point in the story where the cygnets hatch. It was really nice to be able to spend some quiet time with Ava, especially when morning can be such hectic time at our house on weekdays, what with the running around to get ready for school and work. At one point toward the end of the second chapter, Ava leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek while I read.
After I closed the book and got up to make Leah’s breakfast, I wondered about that kiss. It’s good, I’ve found, not to spend too much time considering these spontaneous displays of affection, but this peck on the cheek got me thinking. Do these surprise kisses well up from some overabundance of emotion and spring forth from sheer helplessness to contain them? Or are they “only” an involuntary reflex? Did she especially love that I was reading her a book she wanted to look at, or did she just love me as usual, same as always? A kiss is a heck of a thing to come out of nowhere, you know? It’s not the same as the way Ava thoughtlessly reaches over to twist Leah’s hair when they lie in bed together at book time. It seems more proactive, somehow.
I don’t know why I’m looking to attach any more significance to the kiss than it already embodies all on its own. It was just such a perfect salve for the frayed nerves from night terrors and naughty behavior lately, I guess I wanted it to be extra special, to also be some sort of acknowledgment by Ava that she knows it’s been a rough week. Maybe that’s what it was.
I don’t expect I’ll get kisses like this from her forever, at least not kisses so uncorrupted and pure. Best just to treasure it now for the shooting star it was, fleeting, mysterious, and wonderful.