My #1 Parenting Rule

Every morning, when Duke wakes up - first of all, I have plenty of warning. He must hop out of bed with both feet, because I'll hear a tell-tale "thunk" and then a few minutes later, a slow shuffle down the stairs. 

No matter what I'm doing, I always stop, get up, and pull that turkey into my arms for a snuggle. I'll usually lift him up like a baby, and he'll wrap his legs around my body and bury his face in my neck. We talk about how he slept and if he had any dreams. All in all, it lasts about five minutes and then I go back to drinking coffee and reading and he settles on the couch to watch a cartoon. 

If I had a parenting rulebook, I'd put this rule in sentence one on the very first page. Things are going to fall apart from this point on. He's going to make me bonkers, we're going to debate the most inane things all day long and I'm definitely going to lose my patience. But when he wakes up, GD-it, he knows how excited I am to see him. 

That's all I got - what's your parenting rules?