Secret Kisses

As I have mentioned before, my relationship with my oldest daughter is always a concern of mine. She is the middle child, so she often gets lost in the shuffle. Add to that that her personality is completely different from mine, and you can understand how we sometimes have a difficult time connecting.

I wanted to have something that was just between her and I, something special like a secret signal or a secret handshake, so I came up with the idea of a "secret kiss." If you promise not to tell anyone, I'll share it with you. It goes like this- eskimo kiss, kiss the right cheek, kiss the left cheek, kiss on the lips, then we wiggle our fingers at each other and say, "Woogie woogie woogie!" It just takes a moment, but we do it at bedtime and before she leaves for preschool in the morning. It has become like a little security blanket and it always puts a smile on her face. If I forget she'll say, "Secret kiss!" Whenever we share our secret kiss it is that brief moment of connection when we're really engaged with one another, knowing that we are sharing something special that's just between the two of us.

My son caught us "secret kissing" one day and so he wanted something like that too- but without the kissing (boy+kissing=eww!) so we created our own "secret hug." Secret kisses and secret hugs aren't hard to do- just be creative and have fun with it!