Why We Find Our Children Irresistibly Cute

My husband leaves for work at an ungodly hour, an hour in which there no glimmer of light in the sky. Either sometime before or just after this hour Thing 1 usually makes his way into our bed for snuggle and sleep time, he just doesn't get enough of me during the day. At precisely 6:45 the last several mornings Thing 2 makes a loud entrance by rattling the doorknob and whining to get in, I have taken to not shutting our door all the way to avoid this rude wake up. (Everyone who has ever had to wake me up in the morning will tell you that this is a very delicate procedure and in my college years I was known to drop 4 letter words and throw things.) Thing 1 and 2 have had colds/allergies this week so poor Thing 2 needed some cuddles this morning, life is hard at 2 1/2 don't ya know.

As she is snuggling in close and gently stroking my face with her sweet fingers Thing 1 says, and I quote, "Why does SHE have to come in here EVERY morning now, it is SOOOOO ANNOYING!" (Bear in mind he has been climbing into our bed every night for weeks now.) And thus our day began and continued in this manner until 6:15 or so this evening when I felt the sun was reasonably low enough in the sky to toss my children unceremoniously into bed.

This doesn't sound so cute, right? It's not, in spite of all my best parenting efforts it was just "one of those days." One in which, for whatever reason, the kids were miserable, whiny, fussy, argumentative, belligerent, defiant, tired, etc... Sometimes, everyone just has a bad day and it's a success to not throw in the towel and call a boarding school in Switzerland. But, as Anne Shirley reminds us, "Tomorrow is fresh, with no mistakes in it."

So why do we find our children so irresistibly cute? So unlike the wolf spider, hamsters, various aquarium fish and male polar bears, we won't be tempted to eat our own young.