Morning Raaga

It was 7:12 this morning. I was humming the latest SRK song and smiling. I packed my kid's snack and confirmed that her favorite book was in her backpack. I got dressed for work, my feet had matching socks- a near miracle that it only took three minutes and I only pulled eleven socks from the laundry pile before finding two that matched. I even wore my fancy boots. And the kid is not even up! I was feeling pretty good about myself! I imagined the incredulous look on my coworkers' face in reaction to my early arrival and chuckled. Just as I was getting into the car, my phone rang. "She woke up. Wants to give you a hug before you go"- quietly announced my DH who called me from upstairs. 

My kid's waking up before my leaving for work generally puts an end to any hopes of my making it to work before the 7:40AM meeting. For she would want to hug me a few times, tell me she had a bad dream, tell me she does not want me to go, she would be too tired to go to school, she would say she dislikes what I packed for her lunch (only because we don't say the word 'hate' at home yet), she would announce she does not like wearing the same pair of shoes to school every day, and, if nothing else comes to her mind, she would go right back to wanting more hugs. I admit that I am a total sucker and I try to address her every concern patiently on most mornings.  But sometimes, I do yell at her at the top of my lungs for making me late to work every day, even though it is completely my fault for indulging her at all other times and setting her up for failure the times I don't.

I felt like a deflated balloon going down as I walked up the stairs in anticipation of long hugs and a variety of her other demands. I said good morning and gave her a nice long hug. Then, before she could cook up her plan of attack for the morning-whining, I said "Hope you are ready for school today, Ms. Stewart will be reading your favorite 'The Book Eating Boy' at story time". Instantly she smiled. And even waved bye to me right away, voluntarily releasing me to go to work! It was indeed a miracle!

As soon as I got into my car, I remembered that I have been driving it on empty for two days now. If I didn't get gas on way to work now, prime time roadside disaster was extremely likely. I pulled into the AM/PM on the way. There were no lines and the attendant ran up to my window right away- only to tell me apologetically that they only take cash or debit (and I only had a check/credit card on me). Normally I would breath out expletives in these situations but I said a cheerful thanks and drove to the next gas station, a couple of miles away. During the pleasantly short wait while the tank got filled, I checked my emails and saw a parent from my Telugu class say some very nice things about me. Maybe that was why the wait seemed short and my head felt bigger.

When I eventually made it to work, I was pleasantly surprised to find the two coworkers, the ones that always gave me a hard time about my late arrival, arriving together, a full two minutes later than me! Later, another (female) coworker complimented me on my sexy black boots. And at exactly 8:30AM, I got a text from DH confirming that the beautiful smile our 6yr old gave me earlier this morning stayed on her through the school drop off. 

It has been a great morning, and I am totally convinced that it is because it started with a smile. Reminds me of this quote from a good friend's email signature.

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Start your day with a smile,
after that you can be your nasty old self again
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