Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Or…
Maybe I’m just wrapped around her little finger and spoil her rotten because it physically hurts me when she’s sad.
Whatever the reason, my brain knows I probably shouldn’t worry so much about her feelings getting a little hurt, and it knows it’s a teaching moment I should jump on to make her understand adults just need time away from their kids, and it doesn’t mean we love them any less and has nothing to do with them. But my heart can’t take it when her sweet baby face expresses disappointment or any other negative emotion.
She looks too much like her mother, I swear. If she looked more like me, maybe I’d be totally different.
But probably not.
I look into her pretty eyes framed by the miniature version of her mom’s black plastic glasses and resort to manipulation. “For Daddy’s birthday, I want you to hang out on Uncle Neil and Auntie Astrid’s couch and cuddle up to Scout-boy, because he looks super lonely over there, keeping your spot saved all by himself. And I really, really want you to enjoy a movie with the kids. Can you give me this birthday present? It makes me sad when Scout looks all lonesome. Look at those poor little puppy-dog eyes.”
We both glance over at the Australian Shepherd, and since he heard his name, just like I knew he would be, he’s looking over at us expectantly.
“See? He’s waiting on you to come keep him company. He wants his favorite wittle human,” I pile it on.
Finally, she sighs, looks back up at me, then shakes her head while looking skyward, and says, “If that’s really what you want for your birthday, Daddy, I guess I’ll go over there. You promise you’ll be okay without me?”
My heart seizes in my chest while my jaw and fists clench. Luckily, I had let go of her and my hands are just resting on the table. I say through gritted teeth but my voice still steady, “I’ll be fine for one movie. But not a moment longer. I’ll need my Luna girl by my side after that.” I only tell her this because I know she’s going to be out like a light for the rest of the night within the first thirty minutes of the show. It happens every time she snuggles Scout.
“Okay, Daddy. Happy birthday,” she tells me, before going up on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek and then skipping over to the couch, climbing up to bury herself in Scout’s fur.
Teeth still clenched, eyes going wild, nostrils flared, I turn to my wife, who’s holding back laughter, and we whisper-yell in unison, “Cuteness aggressiooon!”
After I let out a strangled growl while shaking my fists in the air, I say to the table, “I swear sometimes I just want to squeeze her until she pops or just… I don’t know… bite her. So fucking cute I can’t stand it.”
They all laugh, since they were with me the first time I tried to voice what I was feeling when this emotion came over me, before I knew it had a name, and Doc explained it’s a pretty common thing. This feeling of contained violence when one sees like… cute puppy videos or adorable babies that just makes them want to shake them. According to him, it’s just an “involuntary response to being overwhelmed with positive emotions.”
Twyla and I have had fun the past four years coming up with different scenarios.
“I just want to punt her like a football.”
“I’m gonna squeeze her until her head uncorks like a bottle of champagne.”
“I wanna take a chunk out of her fat little baby cheeks.”
Things I’m sure if one has never felt cuteness aggression before would make them call CPS if they heard the creative things that have come out of our mouths.
“So, now that you’ve used mind-fuckery on your own offspring, what’s the plan for the rest of the evening?” Brian asks with a smirk, and I very maturely stick my tongue out at him.
Twyla laughs softly. “I keep telling him he’s going to have to be stern with her at some point and that she’ll get over it, but he just tells me ‘that point is not today.’ So, until that day comes, I must wear the hat of the bad guy who has the audacity to flat-out tell her no.”
She says it with a doting smile on her face as she looks at me, but something about the statement she made doesn’t sit well with me. I never looked at it that way, even though I do recall her mentioning how we play good-cop/bad-cop when it comes to our daughter.
It makes me ask myself… have I ever taken the time to consider how my too-gentle parenting affects Twyla and her relationship with our daughter? If I were firmer with Luna, would Twyla feel less like she must always be the disciplinarian?