Colds, Cuteness

You know a random thing I find fascinating. How colds have qualities. You know, sometimes the family will all catch a cold that involves a prolonged cough. Sometimes a terrible sore throat. They’re just viruses, right? And colds are our immune responses to them. How is it that the structure of a virus can elicit the same, specific physical response in different people? The other night, Abby had a fever close to 102. But she wasn’t irritable at all; she was acting completely normal except for the weird high fever. The next morning, she’s totally fine, no symptoms whatsoever. Turns out Katie had the exact same thing, super high fever with no other symptoms, the night before Abby went over for a play date. Next day, like Abby, totally fine. I dunno, maybe that’s not so fascinating, but I don’t get how it works.

I also find it amusing how us parents find our own kids much cuter than everyone else does. This isn’t a bad thing. The alternative would be terrible. Parents had better find their own kids cuter than everyone else does. But the logical consequence is, their kids aren’t as cute to other people as they are to them.

I’ve told this anecdote before, but for a brief period, my dad preached in the English service at our old church. One Sunday, after the service, everyone rushed up to me; apparently he had told an anecdote about how, when I was born, he thought I was the cutest baby in the entire world. Years later, when he looked at those pictures, he realized, wow, I was ugly. I don’t think that’s exactly what he meant, but those were his words, and yeah, for some reason people were really excited to tell me how my dad thought I was an ugly baby. The only other time I can remember my dad eliciting such a strong response in an English sermon was when he referred to the butt by its alternative, OK-to-use-in-church-to-reference-an-animal-not-OK-for-a-body-part name.

Point is, in the moment, parents are biased about their own kids’ cuteness. We try not to say stuff publicly, but in private, Jieun and I say to each other all the time how Abby is the cutest girl in the world. Objectively, she’s (probably) not. But I don’t think parents can help themselves. My sister wrote an entry supposedly about how annoying her kids nonstop talking is and ended up essentially bragging about how cute they are. Parents can’t help it. And it’s not that our kids aren’t cute. They’re just not as cute as we think they are.