I have decided cuteness should not be allowed in small children.

It creates so many tangents and makes everything take twice as long because you either have to laugh, hide a laugh, or just give them a great big hug.

Miss M (2) and Miss E (6) are well practised in the art of cuteness.

I don’t know where they have learnt it from but have a feeling Mr B is not entirely blameless.

He does do that, ‘you know you love me really’ look when I ask him what is wrong with cleaning the side after making toast, or when he borrows my bank card then can’t remember where he put it.

Mr B:  “Well I put it near your purse…”

Me:  “And what’s wrong with putting it back in my purse?”

Yesterday, having put M to bed at her usual time, 7.00pm.  She suddenly appeared in the kitchen and informed me that she wanted to play.

Me:  “But M, it’s bedtime.”

M:  “I been to bedtime.  Now my want to play.”

Me: “No, it’s not time to play.  You need to go to sleep.” (Staying calm but feeling a wee bit tense as I’m knackered.)

M:  “My finished sleep.  My had enough.”

Ok,

I know, there’s logic in there.

When she stops eating her pasta and starts squashing peas under the lid of her flip top cup, I say,

Me:  M, have you finished your dinner.”

and M says,

“Yes, my had enough.”

And then she is generally allowed to leave the table, or given yogurt so she sits there till we’ve finished.

If M is on the potty/toilet and starts tugging on the loo roll like an Andrex puppy , I usually say, have you finished, and she says,

M: ” My finished had enough my wee wee.”  (She honestly does.)

So it should only follow that when I say,

Me:  “M, you need to go to sleep babe.”

Her saying,

M:  “My finished, my had enough.”

…should mean she can go and play.

What it actually means is mummy thinking ‘arghhhhh’ but also, ‘ahhhh, how cute is my kid.’

Which then leads to cuddles, stories and most definitely not sleep for another half an hour.

Other occassions cuteness has been a ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card have been for example,

When Miss E drew all over the wall when she was 3.  She was so convincing in her insistence that baby Annabell had done it that I couldn’t take the matter any further.  It would be like telling her Santa wasn’t real, and it also made me smile.

Last week M Beaufoix dunked a cuddly puppy in her potty.  (See ‘To Pee or not to Pee’ post.)

She also insisted that the puppy had done it, not M.

So you see, I think this cuteness thing is just far too powerful.

It should be banned, partly for the reasons mentioned above, but also because of the unnerving possibility
in the back of my mind that they do it deliberately…

Because this would mean they are in control.

And frankly that scares me.