Now that The Baby Nickel has weaned, he has taken up patting my cheeks (oh, come on, people, my facial ones!) for comfort and security. Maybe they remind him of the now-forbidden fruits? Whatever his reason, he’s certainly not thinking of it—this reaching for my face is automatic.

Every time I pick him up, his hand seeks out my face, flitting lightly over my nose and mouth until it comes to rest on my cheek. Or he could be sitting alongside me (last night we were sitting on different chairs watching a movie) when he absentmindedly reaches over, as though in a zone, and brushes my skin with the back of his hand. (What he really loves is to twiddle my earlobes, but that makes me get all twitchy-irritated, and long-term would probably give me ear cancer, so that’s been nixed, though you can see in the picture below that he’s attempting—that pinky!—to get away with it, sneaky little guy.)

Sometimes, when we’re not even in the same vicinity, he’ll seek me out for a cheek-tapping morale booster. I might be sitting at the computer when he comes flying through the kitchen, pausing for a half moment to perform his little laying-on-of-hands ceremony, and then spinning away again.

If he’s feeling fierce in his love, he squeezes my cheeks hard, grits his teeth, and growls.

And when I’m mad as a hornet, scolding him, and he’s crying, tears streaming down his face, even then his hand reaches up to touch my face.

The most cheek-time he gets is afternoons when I sit beside him on my bed, waiting for him to fall asleep. We sing, he reads to himself (not very quietly), I rub his back and tummy, he wiggles and fidgets and then, finally, he burrows his head face-down in the pillow and his arm slowly, purposefully extends up, up, up, hand outstretched as in a benediction until it finds my face. And then, sweet joy!, he sleeps.

You have a little ball of that five-minute artisan bread dough stashed in the back of your fridge, right? Yes? Good. No? Well then go mix up a batch (not to be redundant, but it’s fast—only takes, you know, like five minutes) and put it in the fridge.

Then this evening, pull a little container of cooked sausage from the freezer and set it on the kitchen counter to thaw. Grate a cup of cheddar cheese and a cup of mozzarella cheese and set them in covered bowls in the fridge. Brush a baking sheet with olive oil. Whisk together two eggs and a quarter cup of milk, a generous sprinkling of dried oregano and some black pepper. Put that bowl in the fridge, too. Go to bed.

In the morning, heat the oven to 400 degrees, roll out the blob of forgotten dough (or a hunk of the fresh dough), and sprinkle the oiled baking sheet with cornmeal. Place the dough on the sheet, using your fingers to press the dough thin, spreading it out so that it covers the bottom of the pan and up the sides a smidge.

Sprinkle the sausage over the dough, and then the cheddar cheese over the sausage. Next, drizzle on the egg mixture and top it off with the mozzarella. Bake the pizza for 10-20 minutes until the bottom has browned and the top is bubbly golden.

The variations are countless: sauteed veggies, bacon, caramelized onions, and plain cheese, just to name a few. If you want an eggier pizza, increase the eggs to four and add another half cup of milk, making sure your crust has a nice lip to hold the cheesy custard.