From Snark to Lark

Yesterday my daughter woke up on the wrong side of the crib, if you know what I mean. On my way to her room I walked through the kitchen and saw that the food I had left out for her daddy (he worked late the night before) had gone untouched and spent the whole night out on top of the stove. Grrr. Maybe it's because I grew up with a germ, virus and boutchulism obsessed parent or maybe because the prior night my partner did not feel that the lentil and veggie soup I had prepared for the nightly meal was sufficent for someone who worked a 12 hour shift (he may have a point), but it left me a little crunchy.

Just like my baby. She didn't want to be held. She didn't want milk. She wouldn't put her cereal in her mouth even though I knew she was hungry. She wouldn't let me feed her and she didn't want to be put on the floor either. Parents and friends of toddlers, you know exactly what I mean. This + food in kithchen = major crank. And my daughter was SHRIEKING! At 7 a.m!Despite my name, I have never been a morning person. It was so overwhelming and so early I just froze- what am I supposed to do? This is waaay to early for this! Then I realized in a flash of motherly inspiration that what my baby needs is love.

So I picked her up and I snuggled her extra close and spoke softly and told her I loved her. She resisted about 2 seconds and then allowed herself to melt. I helped her with her sippy cup and within 5 minutes she was happily munching on her cereal. Whew! Coffee in hand I turned my attention to the bandit who leaves food out at night, and not for Santa Claus or leprahchauns.

My mind did something like this:

Maybe he just needs love too.
But he should know better! We have talked about this before!
Maybe he was too tired to eat.
I am sick of this crap! I had to stop washing dishes to grate cheese for quesadillas because he couldn't see the 3 various blocks of cheese in the fridge to supplement the lentil soup!
That was 2 days ago. He is working hard, you know.
We could get sick! It's a waste of good food!

And so forth.

Finally, the loving self won by playing this trump card:

Why can you easily let go of frustrations with your daughter and give her extra love when she is extra crunchy but you can't do it with your partner?

That's a really good point, Higher Self, thanks. So I swallowed my frustration, said good morning and gave him a heartfelt hug when he stumbled out of his sleep coma and into the morning light. Turns out that the trains were not running on schedule due to yearly maintenence and he didn't get home until 2 a.m. He had to walk from the train station home because there were no buses at that hour. All of a sudden I was glad he ate at work! He didn't call because he didn't want to wake us up.

"By the way," I said, "I made you this food..."

"Oh, gracias mi amor. I will eat it today."

It should be mentioned that in his culture it is no big deal to leave food out overnight (or in most cultures outside of the US, I may add).

So I find myself thinking this: what if when all people are cranky/mean/upset they just need extra love? Why not, I mean we are all just a bunch of kids on the great playground of earth anyway, right? So that crabby lady in the bank line might be going through a divorce. Or the guy that cuts everyone off in traffic might have found out his best friend has cancer. Maybe they never got any attention as a child unless they were loud and naughty and now they are older and they haven't learned any other way to interact.

What if we could help turn it around by a smile, a small gesture of kindness or giving them the space they need to be a schmuck without judgement? Even if they are wouldn't-touch-that-with-a-ten-foot-pole out of line, you can still ask the angels/God/Universe/Mother Earth to help them out if you are so inclined.

This is one little way that we help to change the world. Try it yourself and you'll see- the person who instantly feels better is you! And it can make all the difference in the world to the other person, even if you don't notice it at all.