hello, universe.

I got up this morning with a stuffiness in my sinuses that should send me right back to bed.  But alas, I am a mother that has a baby that needs to go to daycare and a pile of work that needs tackled.  So after letting the dog out, giving the baby his bottle, letting the dog back in, force feeding the baby some oatmeal, wrestling him into his clothes for the day, bundling his wiggling body into a winter jacket thats a little too big, and begging the dog to "stay," we trekked outside only to remember that the car seat is still in the truck and the truck has ice and snow all over the windshield because its left in the driveway while my dry, clean, warm jeep that is carseatless is in the garage.

Back in the house, off goes the baby's coat, a treat to the dog, and back out goes the mummie.  After falling through a 2foot high snowdrift, yanking the frozen truck door open, ferociously battling the seatbelt through the carseat, hauling said carseat into the jeep, and another ferocious battle with the seatbelt, we were finally ready to go to daycare.  After of course, re-wrestling the baby into his winter jacket, another begging for the dog to stay in the house  - we were off.  Backing out of the garage posed a harrowing near miss of backing into the doorframe since my husband had pushed the rearview mirror in towards the jeep to allow for a walking path in our too-packed garage.  After the panic attack that I almost wrecked our car without even leaving the garage, it was unbuckling the seatbelt, walking around to the other side of the car, putting the rearview mirror back in place, and then trying to calm the baby since he started screaming after seeing me vacate the car leaving him apparently abandon while strapped into the carseat with a ridiculously sized coat on.  Finally, I pulled out of the driveway. 

Now the only thing running through my mind is some choice words for my husband about how he should have switched the carseat because technically the cars fall under his jurisdiction within the realm of duties in our marriage.  And now we're late to daycare, which means I am getting to my work later, which means I have less uninterrupted worktime, which means more stress and it is ALL HIS FAULT.

And on the way, we got stopped because a train was coming, and I sat there and rolled my eyes because how typical is this?

And as I'm sitting there, blood a'boilin' and stressing about all the duties of being a mom and a wife and an employee, this train kept zipping by with graffiti covering the cars.  I know that some people find graffiti wildly offensive, but I'm not one of those people.  I think that its actually quite beautiful, except for the fact that its destruction of property, of course.  And then I was wondering where this artwork was actually coming from - who knows where this train has been before passing through here?  And maybe the graffiti was painted by some kid who is in a bad way and really doesnt' have any self confidence in school and is acting out because he doesn't think anyone cares about him.  When in reality, he has no idea how talented he is and how far his influence can reach.  Because he painted this beautiful artwork on the side of train without thinking twice, and now it has traveled here to stop a mom on the way to take her kid to daycare when she really needed a moment to just sit and enjoy something beautiful.  I don't know the artist, or the train driver, or the person who designed the train schedule.  But somehow on this day we are all connected.  The universe* stepped in and said - let me do something magical.  Kid - you are talented and people you'll never meet will enjoy your artwork.  Mom - calm down, relax, it'll be okay.

So when the train passed and we were left through; I took a deep breath.  Because in fact, I really should calm down and relax.  It will all be okay.

So, I decided to pass on the love.  When I pulled into the video store to drop off our [late] movie, another woman was pulling in too.  So I ran over to her car and said, "here, I got it," and she looked like she just about crapped her pants and then got the biggest smile on her face. Because it is butt-loving freezing here in Erie today and no one likes to get in and out of the car if you don't want too.  Then she handed me her movies and said, "Seriously, thank you so much!" So maybe my tiny, helpful deed today will influence her to do something nice and then that person will do something nice and so on and so on, until just maybe - if the universe is feeling extra magical today - it will find its way back to my graffiti artist and he'll have someone treat him nice today for no apparent reason. 

Hey Kid, that saying, "what comes around, goes around" works for good stuff too. 

[ps. my husband says thanks for taking the heat off of him.]


*please feel free to replace "universe" with your choice of higher power; God, Allah, Krishna, Buddha, the Goddess, Fate, Luck,etc.  I like to think They all work together anyway.