I’ve been racking my brains trying to remember the last time I actually made out with my husband. I’m not talking about the perfunctory goodbye-and-have-a-nice-day kiss I get when he leaves for the day. Nor am I referring to the sleepy embrace we exchange before the lights go out at bedtime. I mean closed eyes, locked lips and tongues intertwined for long, lingering minutes – the kissing that leaves you weak in the knees and begging for more.
What has got me all hot and bothered? Well, my mind started to wander when I chaperoned my seven¬-year-old son and his friends at a pool party not long ago. I was wading when one of the fathers remarked on a young couple in the nearby hot tub who were making out. I think "going at it like a pair of animals" were his exact words.
At first I thought he was warning us to prevent our kids from gawking, which would inevitably lead to those questions that we all dread ("Why are they kissing with their tongues, Mom?"). But, nearly two hours later when he updated me that the couple was still "at it," I jokingly hinted that maybe he was just a tad jealous. "Jealous?" he scoffed. "Once you reach 40 there are far more important things to do with your time!"
More important things to do? I thought incredulously, wishing I could trade places with that couple that very minute. What wouldn’t I give to relive the days when my husband and I felt the urge to press lips just about anywhere – in a bookstore, on an escalator or in restaurant washrooms where we secretly smooched inside locked stalls.
Not only would I give just about anything to feel that urge again, I’d also like to be able to surrender to it without any annoying distractions – no kids punching each other in the next room or tugging on my pant legs, no bag lunches to labour over or loads of laundry to do. You get my point.
The closest I’ve come to making out recently was when my three-year-old son insisted on showing me how "married people kiss." Head tilted to the side with his puppy-dog eyes looking deep into mine, he took my face in his hands and planted a big wet smooch on my lips. When I asked him where he learned to do that, he didn’t reply, "by watching Mommy and Daddy." No, he told me that he had seen married people kissing on TV – more proof that there’s not nearly enough "live" kissing in his own home.
It’s a cruel irony that the very act of making out leads to the act of making babies which leads to the state of being so tired and so busy that we never think about making out ever again. It’s a vicious circle that’s as hard to break as the temper tantrum of a testy toddler.
I still hold out hope – in about 15 years all the kids will be in university. But that’s too long to wait – I’ll hire a babysitter Saturday night and invite my husband out to the car in our driveway. I’ll crank the seats back, pucker my lips… and pray we still remember how!
Writer Jacqueline Foley is happily married to a make-out master and she likes to kiss and tell! If you have a story you would like to share, please send it by email to email@urbanmoms.ca. This article originally appeared in Canadian Living in November 2005.