Karma Chameleon

The minute I hit “publish” on my last post, which was admittedly seething with Debbie Downerisms, I was bothered by it. I’m not really a negative person (PROOF: this sign hangs in our foyer!):

and I am ashamed that I allowed a small group of people and incidents to have such an impact on me. Karma clearly felt the same way, and I have proof of that, too.

Here is a time line of the events that have unfolded this week:

Monday: Work is hectic, a few people annoy me, and I evidently forget about my life mantra to focus on the good. The result: a really crappy post about a pet peeve that I should really learn to shrug off.

Tuesday: My son vomits in The Olive Garden, interrupting the dining experience of everyone within a 5-foot radius. Gross and so sad; he’s embarrassed and obviously sick, and we drove 35 minutes for those bread sticks of which we get none. We head home, only to have a second round of barf unloaded in the backseat of the car. It’s very difficult (and disgusting) cleaning out every nook and cranny in a car seat. (As an added bonus, our dog Hurricane has destroyed the kitchen garbage in hot pursuit of last night’s leftovers. Everything we’ve thrown away this week is strewn all over the house. Her name is fitting, no?)

Wednesday morning: My son spikes a fever. We control it the best we can with Motrin and a lukewarm bath and tell ourselves that things are improving.

Wednesday, 9pm – 5:30am: The boy (and the mother…) is awake, crying, and proving how very wrong we were to think anything had been improving.

Thursday: The hand, foot, and mouth disease had landed. Fortunately, the fever has come down and remarkably, Brady is good about drinking lots of fluids because he understands this will avoid a trip to the doctor. (As another added bonus, I have somehow twisted my knee which makes chasing 2 toddlers and Hurricane quite challenging.)

Friday: By means of a few Run-by Boppings, the boy aptly and often demonstrates why I need two good knees. FYI: Run-by Bopping: noun; when an older siblings runs past his teetering sister and smacks her on the head, scheming to be far, far away by the time an authority figure arrives at the crime scene. When this happens (3 times), I silently give her permission to lay him out when she’s more stable on her feet.

Sibling abuse aside, Brady is feeling better. I can’t help but wonder if it’s a coincidence that his health and my mood have improved around the same time. It goes without saying that a sick baby brings his mother down, but is it possible that a downer of a mother can make her baby sick? In this case, probably not, but I’m choosing to view this as a life lesson anyway: