When you don't have to but you kinda really do

My daughter was Baptised last Sunday. It was beautiful.
She was so well behaved for the entire ceremony I kept wondering who was this tame little girl and what did she do with my loud dadda screeching hand clapping aye aye aye aying babbling daughter.

We kept the ceremony and celebration afterwards to our siblings, parents, grandparents and Missy Moo's Godparents, because, well, that  made us a party of 30 and that's enough people to feed thank you very much.

As soon as we got back to our place, my FIL was found to be in possession of my daughter and an hour later, still had not released the child to another family member, much to the disgust unhappiness of many. Mr Hat finally took Missy Moo so she could play with the other kids "She's not interested in playing with them" could be heard from the FIL.

Ah huh.

Anyway, as she was left to play with the other kids for a couple of hours, by the time everyone sat down to eat, we fed the guest of honour and put her to bed where she slept peacefully for a full two hours while kids ran up and down the hall screaming. I had to go in there and check she was still alive I couldn't believe she was sleeping through all of the commotion!

And then our guests left.

And she was still sleeping.

And nobody else had had much of a cuddle.

So the other day I was complaining to a girlfriend that I had to chauffeur my daughter around to dish out cuddle debts not paid on Sunday, and she said, 'you know you don't have to do that'. To which I replied 'you know in theory it looks like I have a choice, but the consequences of them not seeing Missy Moo are quite painful, so I really kinda do'.

Image credit here

Don't get me wrong, I DO have a choice, and I'm simply choosing the lesser of two evils here. I don't have to, but I really kinda do have to spend time taking her to see her fans so they can dote on her and look at her with the biased loving eyes of another relative. Because they seem to be addicted to her. And when an addict doesn't get their fix, havoc prevails!

How have you dealt with a child 'in demand'? Any tips?
I've been hinting to them all that if they want their fix they have to come to her kingdom, but we always end up in the car, visiting them again. I love that they adore her so much but I often feel like I'm just there to bring the baby!