Friday, February 10, 2006

Learning the Scottish Kiss

There have been injuries also this week. I have a browned eye. I never really noticed that children’s craniums are so much larger in proportion to their bodies than adults’ heads. Now, we all like a cuddle.
On the sofa, on the floor, on the bed. But some small people’s body mechanics are less fine tuned than our own. We’ve started to call it “the wrecking ball.”
When you’re in close proximity to it, it can come at you from nowhere. Like all small ones, she is always and forever bumping that little head of hers. We have not helped the process. We try and play down adversity. And naturally it backfired. She thinks nothing of accidentically whacking us with the back of her skull.
During the early 1980s in Britain, I remember the head butt had a big comeback in pub fighting. It was affectionately known as the “Glaswegian (or Scottish) Kiss.” Of course in Glasgow they probably called it something else. I witnessed this harsh fighting method used in many brawls and was once the victim of it. We all wish our children could benefit from our own mistakes. Havana is, I feel, on a clumbsy and unconcious road to developing her Scottish kiss.