The chaos of Valentine’s Day morning was in full swing.

Renee twirled into the kitchen like a glitter fairy on a mission. Her arms were overflowing with an oddball assortment of paper hearts, macaroni-covered cards, and yarn dolls with lopsided smiles. To her three-year-old eyes, this heap of handmade treasures was invaluable. It was like a dragon’s hoard of love. Each piece was carefully crafted for her friends at school.

Breakfast was a hasty affair of heart-shaped pancakes and giggles. She bounced on her seat, swinging her legs, narrating who would get which masterpiece.

“This one’s for Ali,” she declared proudly. “This one is for miss Deidre, This one is for… um… the friend who cries sometimes.”

I was sipping my coffee, half-listening, equal parts amused and touched by her enthusiasm, when the phone on the table buzzed with a call from my mother-in-law.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart!” Grandma cooed over speaker.

Renee beamed.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, thammo.”

Then came the playful question:

“So, what did Grandma get for Valentine’s Day?”

Renee froze. Syrup-covered fork mid-air. Her eyes darted to the gift pile.

In that split second, her whole world shifted — she had gifts for everyone: her teacher, her best friend, even the gold fish in her class (she insisted it was “very kind”). But nothing for Grandma.

Before I could say a word, my husband gently offered,

“Honey, you can give Grandma a big kiss. Your kiss is precious too.”

She paused. A long, thoughtful pause. Then turned to him, brows raised and lips pursed in pure curiosity.

“Is my kiss precious… because I put lip balm on my lips?”

Readers, I died.

We cracked. Full-blown laughter spilled over the table. Not at her — never at her — but in sheer delight at her logic. It was so perfectly her: sincere, unfiltered, and somehow both ridiculous and wise.

I wiped away a fake tear (the kind that comes from trying not to snort coffee out your nose). Of course, in her mind, value was straightforward: lip balm made lips soft and shiny. Shiny meant special. So of course, her kiss was premium grade.

There was no overthinking. No dramatics. Just childlike truth, packaged in one gloriously innocent question.

In that moment, the breakfast table became a shrine to uncynical love:

A grandmother on the phone blowing kisses through the speaker.

Two parents exchanging a look that said, Did she seriously just say that?

And one little girl, lip balm proudly applied, smooching the phone with everything she had to give.

And it hit me — kids don’t overcomplicate love. They don’t question if it’s good enough, or big enough, or if it counts. They just give. Fully. Boldly. Without fear of being misunderstood.

Renee didn’t rehearse that moment. She wasn’t trying to be deep. But somehow, she distilled the whole day — the heart of it — into one perfect, shiny-lipped kiss.

And I thought:

What if we adults could be like that?

What if we stopped treating love like a transaction — measured, weighed, wrapped in performance and second-guessing?

We exhaust ourselves chasing the “perfect gesture,” worrying that what we offer might fall short. A message isn’t thoughtful enough. A hug isn’t grand enough. A simple “I love you” isn’t poetic enough. So we delay. We edit. We hold back.

Because deep down, many of us are still trying to prove our love is worthy — or worse, that we are.

But here was Renee, all of three years old, offering the most ordinary thing — a kiss — with extraordinary confidence. She didn’t doubt its value. She didn’t need it to be more than it was. She didn’t shrink it or inflate it. She just gave it. Wholeheartedly.

There was no fear of “not being enough” in her eyes. Only certainty.

She knew her kiss — lip balm and all — was worth something.

Because she was.

That’s what children get right. They start from the quiet knowing that they are enough, so what they give is enough too. They don’t ask the world to validate it. They don’t over-curate love into something it was never meant to be.

So maybe the solution isn’t to try harder. Maybe it’s to return — to simplicity, to sincerity, to that small, brave voice inside that says:

“What I have to give is enough, because it’s coming from me.”

Love isn’t in the grandeur. It’s in the gesture — even if it’s just a kiss.

Especially if it’s just a kiss.

So here’s my sticky, glitter-covered, slightly sarcastic, but deeply heartfelt wish:

May all kids stay this unfiltered in thought. May they never learn to second-guess their love. And may we, the grown-ups who think we know everything, learn to love with this kind of bold, uncomplicated truth.

Because sometimes, all it takes is a kiss.

And a little lip balm.