The scene: Chiara and I are lying on Luke’s and my bed, which, because we are squatting in Chiara’s bedroom until we do some minor electrical work in our bedroom, is the family bed for the next two weeks. It’s 8:45, and I’m trying to nurse Chiara to sleep. I’m sleepy but don’t want to fall asleep because I haven’t even eaten dinner yet and have a few things yet to do. So, I spy my laptop and without disturbing Chiara too much, pull it onto the bed with us. Then I wait a little bit until, I hope, Chiara is too sleepy to be distracted by the Mac sounds or the keyboard.
 
Waiting….
OK. I open the laptop and it makes a welcome noise, then the screen lights up. Chiara registers the commotion and starts to wiggle like she’s got to sit up and check out what’s going on.
 
Oh well. My sleepyhead daughter is now wide awake and staring at my laptop. On it is a background image of Chiara and her dad, from several months ago at the Cherry Blossom Festival. Their heads are close to each other and they’re smiling while lying on the grass.
 
Chiara appraises the image and smiles. She points and makes some bababa sounds. Then, unexpectedly, she smacks her lips a couple times and leans over to me and gives me a peck on the lips. Smiles. sits back and looks at the screen again. She smiles and points at the screen and seems to be telling me something but I can’t understand. She laughs. Then she smacks her lips, leans over and kisses me again. Smiles.
 
She repeats this a couple more times. Then she looks at me and sticks out her tongue. I stick out mine. She laughs. We start to ape each other by sticking out our tongues in all different ways. She laughs and laughs. When we stop sticking out our tongues at each other she goes back to nursing.
 
I can only guess at what was going on in her head. What I think is that she was telling me that she feels loved by her dad, and by me, and she wanted to share her love, too.
 
That night she didn’t go to sleep until after 10. Luke came home to find us awake, and Chiara smiled when she saw him, then gave him some lip smacking kisses. She eventually drifted off to sleep lying on Luke’s stomach.

This is the photo that launched a dozen lip smacking baby kisses