Attitude is Everything

I can always tell when I feel a bad attitude coming on. My chest gets all puffy and my nose gets crinkly and I get frowny. Yes, there are lots of adverbs in that sentence that describe my body and how it responds to my internal behavior. Inside I am rebelling from whatever it is that is chaffing me. If I practice no restraint, I go flailing about complaining of my lot in life, which is utterly pointless and does nothing but irritate the people around me.

For example, Sunday evening I was exhausted. We had been running all weekend and I just wanted to sit down and relax. Instead, I was standing at baseball practice waiting for the team to finish. And they just kept playing and playing and playing. I was seriously crabby. To make matters worse, the woman who volunteers to keep the schedule told me there would be a double header Monday starting at 6:15. My brain popped, like a light bulb burning out, and my ears got warm. I did not want to spend another night at the ballpark.

Instead of accepting my lot in life, that while my son is playing on this team I have no personal life, I fumed. Then I began to make my way around from parent to parent vocalizing all the angst I was feeling inside. I could tell by the looks on their faces that they did not want to hear me complain but I just kept right on at it anyway. I know from experience that there is nothing more annoying than a stranger complaining to me about their problems but I inflicted this agony on the other suffering parents while I hoped to drum up an ounce of sympathy for my own sorry predicament. After all, we were in the same boat. All I got was blank stares and lots of blinking. Finally I gave up and just stood there and suffered. With no one to commiserate, complaining just wasn’t any fun.

I recognized that I needed a serious attitude adjustment. So I went home, got in bed and began to plan my Monday. Suddenly a double header after a full day of work didn’t seem so formidable. As a matter of fact, Monday turned out just fine. Well. Sort of. Things were okay until we encountered the kitten conundrum.

Kittens, you ask? Yes, kittens. Oh, I don’t have cats. I have dogs and bunnies. I was standing at the first ballgame when my husband called to say, “We have a problem.” I braced for the worst and then he said, “Kittens” and I was like, huh? Our dear Gwen, my golden retriever mix, found some kittens that had crawled out from under the door of our neighbor’s garage and was trying to keep them warm. Yes, Gwen is a very special girl. The kittens were mewling, probably because they were hungry, and my husband called me. “I’ll be right there,” I said and quickly drove home.

He had placed the little babies in a box with a towel. They were no older than 2 weeks and tiny. They were soaking wet and crawling around making the most horrible noises. They were adorable. Eric looked at me and said, “No.” I said, “We have to feed them.” And he said, “No. We are not keeping them.” My mothering nature wanted to run to the store and buy kitten formula and ease their suffering but my husband is a cruel, heartless man who hates cute and cuddly things and wouldn’t let me. I’ll spare you the argument that ensued. Needless to say, he won because he was right, I don’t have time to nurse kittens. I wish I did, but I don’t. And that, my friends, is the sound of my heart breaking. The day that I don’t have time to nurse poor baby animals is the day I die inside.

So we called the Humane Society and even though they encouraged us to release the kittens and hope their mother would come back, we didn’t. Because it’s not the first time we have had feral cats and when they get bigger they are an incredible nuisance. So we insisted the Humane Society come and pick them up and they did and my children cried and I put on a brave face and we moved on.

This morning arrived with great clarity as regret surfaced and I faced the urge to bludgeon my husband in his sleep. After all, if it weren’t for him we would be the proud keepers of sweet little feral kittens. I would have been up all night listening to them mewl while trying to feel them and I would have had to call in sick to work. My children would be pleased as punch but instead, I found myself doing crunches and listening to my sweet little four-year-old talk about how cute those little kittens were. Worst. Mother. Ever.

What does this have to do with attitude? Everything. The next morning I decided to forgive my husband, even though he is a cruel, heartless beast. And I resolved not to hold the kittens against him. So on Tuesday night when another kitten appeared I did the only rational thing I could think of. I stopped at Petsmart and bought kitten formula and tried nursing the little creature for an hour and a half until his belly was full. And then I called the Humane Society because I realized that I could not call in sick to work for the rest of the week to nurse the cutest feral kitten you ever saw in your life just because my children were crying and I was crying. And yes I am nuts. But I totally have a positive attitude about the whole thing.

Because sometimes I have to understand that I am human and life happens. Baseball games happen. Kittens happen. And “cruel” husbands who know what’s best for me happen. And sometimes I just have to accept my lot in life and realize there’s nothing I can do about the unexpected. Complaining won’t make it go away. It just makes the people around me miserable. In the great, grand scheme of things I am truly blessed. I did not lose my home or any people I love to a tornado this week and I am gainfully employed and have a full tummy. And God bless the Humane Society for existing and for making house calls. And God bless my children who have the same wonderful, beautiful, tender heart that I do.