How do people do it?!?!?

Travis and I are babysitting my nieces for two days and two nights until my sister and brother in law return from their cruise to sunny Mexico. My question to you is this: what is it in a child that makes them wake up with a smile on their faces, excited to face the day? If I could bottle this phenomenon, I would be a millionaire. I can barely roll out of bed and get my thing together for work, but Ella (the two year old), after going to bed an hour late and getting up twice in the middle of the night (the first time to stare me into wakefulness to present me with her empty juice cuppie and the second time to go bats screaming "Puppy!! Puppy!!" because the dog came in to sleep with me), was up and at 'em at 5:30, wanting to jump on the bed. How would it be?

Last night Amaia (the four year old) wanted to "eat at a restaurant" and was baffled because Travis and I weren't into her Chuck-a-Rama suggestion. She told me "They have Coke...you LIKE Coke!!" Hard to argue with that rationale. But in the end we talked her into IHOP, where Ella ate pancakes faster than Travis could cut them up and stuff them in her mouth.

And then there was this morning. After talking Amaia out of calling KinderCare to find out if it was pajama day (it wasn't) and convincing her that, despite her arguments, I have been putting shoes on for several years now and hers were, in fact, on the right feet, I dropped them off only to have Ella crying and reaching for me to pick her up and take her with me. In the end I had to just leave her there bawling her little eyes out (but her hair looking cute as a bug's ear in her piggy tails).

So today, I am a tired, grumpy brute. Is this kid thing really all it's cracked up to be??