Love Is In the Air!

Well for toddlers anyway

As my daughter nears her fourth birthday, she has a lot of questions. Many are about love. I find it adorable and intimidating. Overall, I don’t want to screw up this teaching opportunity. There’s not really a handbook on how or when you’re supposed to explain love to your kids. I wish there was. I follow directions well. When I’m left to my decision making, it normally doesn’t go that well.

For example, Hayden (my daughter), was staring at a picture hanging in my bedroom of my husband and I on our wedding day.

“Mommy, why are you wearing that big white dress?”

“Because that was when Mommy and Daddy got married.”

“What’s married?”

Hmm. I guess I probably should have thought my answer through a little bit more because I went off on a rant about when two people love each other they promise to spend their lives together and they get married. On the day they get married, the wife (aka Mommy) wears a white dress. She seemed to understand perfectly fine- until I overheard her telling her friends that she was married to her stuffed animals, her grandparents and her Mom and Dad. 

I figured I would try that explanation again. This time I explained that being married is when people fall in love and spend their lives together. It’s only for grown-ups and they kiss on the lips. (Clearly, I need that parenting handbook)- This time she became obsessed with kissing my husband and I on the lips because she claims that she loves us and wants to marry us. No matter how often we explained that only Mommy’s and Daddy’s kiss on the lips, she would sneak one on our lips. I’ve caught her kissing her favorite stuffed animal “on the lippy’s” several times. I tried again, when you’re young, I explained, you have boyfriends. You don’t kiss them on the lips, you just are friends with them. Then when you grow up you pick one that’s your favorite and marry them. She seemed to understand that concept. 

To make matter’s more complicated; she started complaining that she didn’t have enough white clothes. It took me a while to put two and two together and to realize that her obsession about dressing in white was because she would stare at the picture of me in my wedding dress. We sat down and discussed that big girls wear all kinds of colors- not just white. Pretty colors? She asked- Yes, pretty colors, I assured her. 

Next problem- I am gone for work by the time she wakes up in the morning and it’s up to my saintly husband to get her dressed and off to school before he can head to his office. One morning he was frustrated and claimed that he couldn’t deal with the argument that they have every morning about what she will wear. I was confused- What was the problem? I asked- She insisted on only wearing “pretty colors- the colors of the rainbow”. She wouldn’t wear jeans, anything black, grey, blue… Anything that wasn’t in that rainbow spectrum, she wasn’t putting on. Those weren’t “pretty colors”.

Sigh.

Just when I thought everything was under control and that she understood the concept of love and marriage, I overheard her telling two little boys at her school that they were her boyfriends and one day she would choose one of them to marry her. She told them she would pick her favorite. Oh, and to top it off, she told them that they couldn’t kiss her on the lips yet. Where is that damn handbook?!

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Anna Zap is the Show Morning Co-Host and Midday Personality on Connecticut radio station Star 99.9. She has performed stand-up comedy all over New York City, Westchester County and Fairfield County. Make sure to check out her obscured views of Connecticut at CTBoom.com and her adventures in motherhood at rantingsofafirsttimemommy.blogspot.com Her most important role though is as a Mommy to her beautiful three year old daughter Hayden, and wife of seven years to her college sweetheart, Paul. Together, they are making it in Fairfield County. Follow Anna on Twitter @AnnaZapOnAir.