Oxytocin levels enter the red zone.

Oxytocin, known as 1-({(4R,7S,10S,13S,16S,19R)-19-amino-​7-(2-amino-2-oxoethyl)-​10-(3-amino-3-oxopropyl)-​16-(4-hydroxybenzoyl)-​13-[(1S)-1-methylpropyl]-​6,9,12,15,18-pentaoxo-​1,2-dithia-​5,8,11,14,17-pentaazacycloicosan-4-yl}carbonyl)-​L-prolyl-​L-leucylglycinamide to its more intimate friends, is a bit of a chemical problem around here.

"Hey, I can handle it, its not that strong a drug.  Ha ha haha ha ha ha ahahahahhahhha ha haa!"

Sure, oxytocin has a bit of a rep as the hormone that stops you from abandoning the distended, slime-covered, mewling infant that has just reaped havoc with your perineum.  "Bugger that", says oxytocin, "give it a cuddle and devote the next couple of decades to meeting its every need."

No, oxytocin's real insidiousness is when it creeps up to flood level within the ordinary household.

I live with two girls, you see.  And then the husband is prone to the odd cuddlesome period himself - aided and abeted by testosterone surges in his case, there being a thin line between a cuddle and a grope.

How can you tell the oxytocin levels are red-lining?  You can't put your socks on in the morning because you are being cuddled.  You can't sort the dirty washing because there are girls wound around your legs.  Your sense of personal space is so squeezed, you contemplate running away and joining a comtemplative order where talking is forbidden and touching is right out.  

Even the cat is adding to the loving crowd, though in her case it might the onset of cold weather making me seem like an ambulating heat source.

I hate to complain but some days I am being loved to death.