Last night I was reading through my personal journal, looking for things to include in the book, when I came across this entry from May of 2002. I laughed out loud, and thought it was worth sharing:

So Ben and I were out and about today, and he started to get a little out of hand in the bookstore. I usually let him run around a bit in the store as long as he isn't plowing into people or otherwise causing a problem, but I do have to occasionally reign him in when he gets too worked up. So I got down on his level, looked him straight in the eye, and said, "Shhhhh....".

He immediately got a gleam in his eye, a huge grin, and he turned his head and pressed his ear directly onto my mouth. I kept going "shhhhh" into his ear, and he put his arms around me and just enjoyed the white noise. When I stopped he immediately grabbed my chin and faced me towards him, saying "daddy I want shhh please". So I did it some more. After a few minutes of breathing heavily into my child's ear he was ready to move on.

A while later we were in a different store when he asked for "shhh" again, only this time he wanted to look into my mouth while I was doing it. He stuck his finger in my mouth, running it along my teeth to feel the sound. Fair enough, he had clean hands. No big deal.

Then he wanted to taste the sound.

Folks, I draw the line at my son trying to french kiss me....