Play Ground Kiss

PapaGus is out of town for a few days on business and I am looking for things to do with Gusi. Today we went out to buy some veggies and fruit across from the gas station. Yes, it sounds weird even to me, but there are kiosks set up all over the city, especially around gas stations. Why? Because people who frequent gas stations usually have cars and people who have cars usually have money.

After procuring our groceries we went to the American Club to visit the play ground. Granted this is the kind of play ground that most Americans would never take their kids to in the US, much less here, but since it is one of three (?) play grounds in the city, beggars can't be choosers. When we got there I recognized one of the cars parked outside as that of my friend Katie's. She's got two little girls, a 3-yr old and a 1.5-yr old. We found them inside the bar having just finished a class, along with a Turkish mom who's also in our play group. So, we decided that we would all go to the play ground together with the children.

Not two minutes after going, one of the dad's in our play group shows up with his son. There are now three boys and one girl all around the same age, plus a 3-yr old girl, running around and everyone is having a blast. The kids are running, jumping, getting dirty and the parents are chatting and sharing parenting tips. As it turns out, Gusi starts saying Katie's younger daughter's name over and over again. He always asks about her even though he is usually charmed by older kids more than their younger siblings, even if they are his same age. So he keeps saying her name and then he says her name followed by the word jolie (pretty or nice). I tell this to Katie and we both laugh. About a half hour later, after Gusi is still mentioning Katie's younger daughter's name, Katie's older daughter starts calling after Gusi. I suspected she might be jealous but just watched to see what would unfold. Gusi was oblivious. Every time the older daughter called his name, he looked around for the younger daughter. Finally, the older daughter walked right up to Gusi and planted one on him. Right there on the play ground. Now, Gusi has had cute encounters with little girls where a peck was given or received in complete innocence, but this was much more. This was a deliberate attempt to get Gusi's mind off of the younger sister. I asked Katie if her daughter had just planted one on my son and she laughed and said yes. Then she asked her daughter, "did you kiss Gusi?" She smiled and said she had. Then she went and did it again. Gusi was confused. I was astounded! She really didn't want him thinking about the younger sister.

Gusi and I still can't believe it happened. Really, what does one do in this situation? If we were Senegalese and the children were older, we'd be talking about how big of a goat was needed for the wedding ceremony. Given that we're not Senegalese I can only propose we talk about how many boxes of Annie's Cheddar Bunnies we should bring to the next play date.