About a year and a half ago, Emma Kelly thought she saw me sneaking a kiss with a man at this backyard party we were all invited to. She was hysterical. “Mommy! WHAT are you DOING?!?!”
He took off running and I was left to reassure my daughter that it wasn’t what she thought it was and that I was just hugging him good night and I was so sorry that she was upset but there was really nothing to be upset about. It was DRAMA. And I spent the next few weeks reassuring her that everything was okay. She didn’t see what she thought she saw. And her continued reaction weeks later was now borderline ridiculous and I wasn’t going to entertain the conversation with her any more.
So months and months passed. She’d randomly bring up, “Remember when I thought I saw you kissing that guy and I got so upset?” Yes, I remember. But I reminded her that I hadn’t seen that man in all those months (after he cowardly dumped me via text, by the way) and there was no reason to get upset about that all over again. But for some reason, she’s been bringing it up A LOT lately.
I finally asked her, “Is it ever going to be okay for me to kiss a man?” She didn’t even have to pause and think. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re my mommy.”
“Have you ever seen daddy kiss a girl?”
“Yes.”
“Is that okay?”
“Yes.”
“Why is it okay for daddy to kiss a girl and I can’t kiss anybody?”
“You just can’t.”
“But I thought you wanted a stepdaddy someday?”
“No, I just want a stepmommy.”
“Why?”
“Because stepmoms are fun.”
I decided not to launch in to the whole, “Oh YEAH?? What about Cinderella?? You forget about THAT little story of a girl and her super fun stepmom???” But what good would that do…EK would just go run off and tell her daddy that I called his girlfriend a potential evil stepmonster. Sometimes you have to just let your kid think she’s won the conversation.
But one day, my sweet little darling daughter, when you dig through the archives of my blogs and you’re finally reading this…Mommy lied. I really was kissing that man at the backyard party.
