Two thoughts collided in my mind just now:

1) Children are a terrible nuisance. They eat my food, disturb my peace, interrupt my work, and keep me from getting enough sleep.

2) Chestertown has free, curbside recycling every Friday morning.

You can only imagine how pleased I was, then, when Kato climbed into the recycling box a few minutes ago.

I nonchalantly added some extra paper, hoping to cover him up just enough that the recycling people wouldn’t notice.

I was already thinking ahead to how much better life was going to be once half of my baby woes were cured, when suddenly the other culprit decided to join her brother in the bin. The stars were in alignment!

But unlike Kato, who had been so quietly content to remain buried among the scraps, Alden refused to be inconspicuous.

I knew at once that I couldn’t possibly set her on the curb in such a state. Dismayed, I accepted that my promised deliverance was not to be. I looked down at my pair of problems.

I felt that persistent, inescapable parental tic, the soul-deep pang that makes me love these awful meddling creatures in spite of all sanity and reason.

And so I reluctantly removed them from the bin before I set it on the curb (much to their protestation, I should add).

Nature made babies cute for a reason, I suppose. It was a dirty trick.