If you're like me, you've come to the unavoidable conclusion that your one-year-old son--with his big, precious eyes, chubby cheeks, soft skin, and a loopy, semi-toothed smile that can light up a gymnasium--is officially, empirically adorable. You take him out to show him the world, and the world is drawn toward him to coo and genuflect.
Try as they might, they cannot resist the tractor beam of his glowing charisma and supple flesh. They fondle his legs, stroke his hair, caress his cheeks. This last affront is particulary troubling, because it places your son's perfect, searching mouth in range of dirty rabblefingers.
How do you keep strangers from mauling your baby? Do as my mother-in-law did: Just before you leave the house, smear your child's cheeks with a little jelly, and passersby will recoil from your messy kid like snakes from a mongoose.
