Devil in the Diaper

That devil has found new and unusual ways to torture me. There's the straightforward approach:

Before nap time, we have debates on whether or not she should change into her pajamas. She wins. Gets into pajamas.:

Pie: I ready for nap.
Me: You're tired?
Pie: Yeah.
Me: That's great! So no crying?
Pie [squinching up face in her Pie way]: No, Sweetie cry.
Me: But you're tired!
Pie: Yes.
Me: But you're going to cry?
Pie: Yes.
Me: Why will Sweetie cry?
Pie: Because Sweetie cry and Mommy and Daddy get sad.
Me: So maybe you won't cry?
Pie: No. Sweetie cry. So Mommy and Daddy get sad.

But then there's the insidious ways she inflicts her sadistic her persecution. Because Sweetie? She's figured out the thing that will get me at the core. The thing that will bring me to my knees. My Sweet Sweetie Pie, my little butterball, my little beauty, well... Sweetie had become Smoochless Sweetie.

That's right. My little one has cut me off from the thing that makes parenting worthwhile: those little pecks of the lips.

I'm not even sure how it started, but it's evolved to this:
Adam: Time to give Mommy a good-night smooch.
Pie: Okay.
Me: It's nighty-night time for Sweetie Pie!
[I lean in. Pie's hand shoots in front of her face]
Pie: No smooch! High five.
And so Pie gets a bedtime high five now.
She got me once when she was procrastinating. Adam came back downstairs.
Adam: She wants her smooch after all.
Pie: Smooch, Mommy!
Pie starts to move her mouth around in the our tradition of "warming up" the mouth for a smooch. I start to warm up my mouth. She leans toward me with a big pucker. I lean in and get within centimeters of her face when she jumps back.
Pie: NO!
The hand goes flying up.
Pie: High five.

If I want to piss her off--which, yes, I occasionally want to do--I give her a smooch. "No!! No smooch! No smooch!" and she vigorously wipes it off. I like to taunt her, "Oh no, Sweetie! You still have a bit of smooch there!" I start wiping her face. "Oh, you missed a spot there!" She starts wiping. "There's still smooch on me!" she'll wail until her face has been sufficiently scrubbed. It's my new form of punishment: Pie, if you don't behave, I'm going to smooch you! Works every time.