Hugs and Kisses

My son loves me. That much I've figured out by now. And I love him too. At four years old he's adorable. He's the spitting image of me, both looks and personality. Well, his personality is what I like to think I would have been had my parents actually loved me. He loves his parents and shows it without any fear of retribution of any kind. That's the way a kid should grow up.

Gus and I have this little routine when he comes over. I kneel down and he runs up to me. I pick him up in a big hug and we spin around a minute, then I put him down and he laughs. I didn't used to kneel down, but one time he ran up to me and he was at just the right, or maybe I should say wrong, height that he head butted me in the balls and I almost fell over, so until he gets taller, that's not happening anymore.

We have three different types of hugs. At least, according to Gus we do. There's the little hug, which is where he pretty much just leans up against me. When he's sitting in my lap he rests his forehead against my chest and puts his hands on my shoulders. He has a tendency to giggle when he does that, but then he's four so he giggles a lot. Then we have what he calls the kissy hug. This is where he hugs me around my neck and kisses my cheek for a few seconds. Usually makes a kissy noise of some kind while he's doing it. Then, of course, it's my turn to do that to him. Then he has what he calls the squishy hug. This is where he wraps his arms around my neck and squeezes as hard as he can. I usually end up getting a shoulder in the neck so I have no problem giving him the grunt that he likes to try to squeeze out of me. When it's my turn I wrap my arms around him and squeeze as hard as I can without actually hurting him. He loves this type of hug best of all.

He's got various other hugs. He'll hug my arm, my leg, he's even hugged my hand on occasion, taking it and putting it to his cheek. He's adorable like that. Whenever he wants to hug me I have a hard time keeping from tearing up and for me that's saying a lot. But then, I'm always more emotional around Gus than I am around any adult because I know that Gus won't take advantage of the vulnerability. And it's good for him to see me showing emotion like that. God forbid he grows up to be just like me. Looking like me is going to be enough of a problem for him.

Gus likes to sit in my lap. Especially when I'm working on the computer. He lets me know when I am not paying enough attention to him by coming over, crawling under the desk and climbing between my legs into my lap. Then he grabs my face and kisses me. Now, I don't usually work on stuff while he's awake. It's just that when he wakes up from his nap, he wants me able to pay full attention to him and so he comes and gets my attention. There's been more than once that I opened a blank word document, sat him in my lap and let him just type. He loves to type. There are times that when he's sitting in my lap and I am working on something, he'll put his hands on my hands like he's helping me type. I love the way he does that.

Now, I'll admit that he has ruined a document or two. There was one time that I forgot to close my laptop while I went to the bathroom. When I came back he was typing and the document had been totally destroyed. I had to start over from scratch. He hadn't just hit the various letter keys; he'd hit some kind of commands that pretty much deleted the document. While I did get angry I reminded myself that he didn't know what he was doing, it was an accident, and I told him to never touch the computer again. Of course, my laptop is closed at all times now when he's around.

Gus also has this thing about kisses. He loves giving kisses and he loves getting kisses. He is particularly fond of kissing Justin, which makes me kind of wonder. He ran up to Justin one time and kissed him right on the ass. I know that he's just a kid and doesn't know what he was doing, but you should have seen the look on Justin's face. I still roll on the floor every time I remember it. Gus likes to get hugs from Justin as well. He hasn't taken to calling him anything other than his Justin at this point, but I did catch him once starting to say daddy but then he looked at me and changed his mind. Even at four years old he's worrying about hurting my feelings and that kind of worries me a little. But I figure I'll let him decide when the time is right.

Okay, back to the kisses. Gus will come up to me and kiss my hand, or my leg, or my shoulder if I'm sitting down. He likes to kiss Justin's cheeks and even his hair. He loves Justin's hair. Proving once again how much he is like his father. Gus can only be described as an affectionate child and I am very glad of that fact. I thought it was kind of interesting one time that Justin was gone for the weekend with his mom and sister to visit his grandparents and Gus came over. After about four hours, he came over to me crying. Now, I know fake crying when I hear it and that's exactly what this was, but I didn't want to make him feel foolish. I put him in my lap and hugged him and asked him what was wrong.

"I miss my Justin," he said, then dramatically threw his head against my chest and went back to fake crying. It was a drama queen moment if ever I saw one. God he's so my kid. So I called Justin and explained to him that Gus missed his Justin and they ended up talking on the phone for like, half an hour, running up my phone bill. I didn't really complain too much because I talked to Justin for almost an hour after that. But it was just too cute.

I've found out that daddy kisses heal hurts better than mommy kisses do, but Justin kisses heal hurts the best. At least according to Gus. There was one time that Justin and I had taken Gus to the park and he had fallen down and scraped his knee. He was crying and I went over and picked him up, carried him to the bench and started looking him over. He was wearing shorts so both knees got scraped up and he was bleeding.

"Did I get bleed?" he asked with a sniffle. It's so cute the way he asks that. I nodded and we took him home and got him cleaned up. We put a band-aid on each knee and then I kissed them per his request. Then he went out and looked at Justin with his pouty hazel eyes and pointed at his knee and said, "You need kiss it." So Justin smiled and knelt down and kissed his knees too. Then Gus was just fine. That's when I figured out that Justin kisses work better than Daddy kisses. I'm honestly not upset about that. I like Justin kisses too. But now, every time Gus falls down, the first thing he says is, "I'm okay, I didn't get bleed." Justin and I have a hard time not laughing whenever he does that.

One thing that I love is to watch Justin as he's reading to Gus. It's Gus' favorite pastime, having his Justin read him a story. He insists on sitting in Justin's lap as the story is read, pretending to read the book right along with him. His favorite story is Cinderella, followed closely by Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast. My God what are those lesbians doing to my kid! But I love the way Justin makes the various voices as he reads. Gus giggles a lot and I've noticed that on more than one occasion he's fallen asleep in Justin's lap. There's a tiny little part of me that is just the slightest bit jealous, but it's a very, very small part. Justin has spent a lot more time with Gus since he was born than I have. Justin is also a lot freer with his emotions and it's a lot easier for him to show affection. Justin is also younger than I am, closer to Gus' age. Granted, there's a seventeen-year age different, but that's closer than a twenty-nine year age difference.

I guess what it all comes down to is the fact that I love my son. And he loves me. It's an unconditional love that I have only ever been given by one other person in my life, Justin. The two of them have helped me feel like I deserve every hug and every kiss. Like I am worth loving and that my life isn't a complete waste. Both of them have the ability to make me feel better no matter what kind of day I've had, just with a simple look or a simple touch. But my favorite moments of all are when Gus comes over and starts patting my arm trying to get my attention just to tell me that he loves me. I actually cried the first time he did that. I, Brian fucking Kinney, shed tears just because someone said they loved me. Who knew?

Return to Rena's