Expression: "The mother was blowing kisses to the child."

[Tom]

Hi

Can a mother blowing kisses to her crying child, especially with sound? How does the following sound to you?

[Yankee]

Hi Tom

Your sentence sounds OK to me, but I don't think of "blowing kisses" as something that is typically done to soothe a crying child. So, I have a feeling that what you are referring to as "blowing kisses" might not be quite the same activity that I picture when someone talks about blowing kisses. I picture blowing kisses as someone kissing their own hand and then "blowing the kiss" from their hand to someone else. Is that what you had in mind?
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Alan]

Hi Tom,

Let's get really fussy about this. To my mind 'blow kisses to' suggests there is some distance between the kisser and the kissee, say kisser on platform and kissee on departing train. 'Blow kisses at' suggests close proximity between kisser and kissee and that could apply to your 'crying child' but that seems a little strange and could make the child sob even more. I imagine mother wants to comfort child and in that case in the kissing scenario I would suggest that mother makes kissing noises a la Brigitte Bardot and the expression I would use is 'bill and coo' - making as it were soothing sounds.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Communicating with you?

[Conchita]

[Alan]

Thank you for your approbation, Conchita and thanks also for bunging on the accent. Sadly my keyboard can't manage accents or perhaps I can't manage it to do it. I only hope that Tom takes my flippancy the right way. I just felt that after all these recent verbal ding dongs and imbroglios over lambs and wolves, coughs and 'orfs', the time had come for a bit of lightheartedness. Also the sun is shining, bulbs need to be planted and also there's a jackdaw or is it a magpie? that has watched me eating breakfast in the front of the house and has now popped round to the back watching me typing - clearly he wants me to come out and play. So, to the garden I shall go.

Alan
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English as a Foreign Language
You can read my EFL story Phrasal Verbs/take