emotional rescue

I'm learning today about Mummy kisses. I thought, you see, that the words 'Mummy kiss it better' would only word firstly on a child who can understand language and secondly on a child old enough to be distracted by something as conceptual as a Mother's kiss, rather than a baby who acts on pure feeling and emotion alone and for whom the pain of a knocked head would be overwhelming. However, today the spud fell down and hit his head twice and both times a simple kiss really did Make It Better.

I know, I know, he hit his head twice in one day - and you're thinking 'how did she manage it?' It's true, normally he can hit his head four or five times in a day but today I was being Ultra Observant.

Anyway, so both times I swooped him up as he was giving me his most pitiful and dreadful cries. In a fit of Mummyness, I kissed his head, rubbed it, hugged him and some prehistoric part of my brain kicked in, opened my mouth and uttered the Four Immortal Words. Did he cry harder? Did he continue to weep and thrash? No! Amazingly, within two seconds of the Mummy Mantra he calmed down and started doing Spud things like yanking my hair and trying to clap his hands while holding banana. I nearly fell down and hit my own head.

So. The words don't matter, clearly a Mother's kisses really do have the power to dissolve pain. Unbelievable. I should be selling them down Brixton market on a Sunday morning, I bet I'd make a fortune curing hangovers.
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