A Smile Is Contagious

Mondays seem to be a tossup for me of disdain and joy.  In so many aspects I hate Mondays.  And rightfully so.  The kitchen is always a mess of soiled dishes and odds and ends scattered throughout the house.  The thought of getting through all of those dishes seems impossible and daunting, but on the other hand I love Mondays.  After the chaos of getting six kids up and running and a husband off to work, my hands sink into warm dishwater with soft church music playing in the background and I get to reflect on the week before.  In so many ways this starts my week with peace despite the endless mess and dirty floors before me.

            I was thinking thus this morning as I was struggling to scrub off the dried and glued on leftover Taco Soup from the pan that I was washing when I couldn’t help but think to last Saturday.  The day started rather sweetly.  Jason and I laid in bed longer than usual just enjoying being together.  The kids were quiet and off doing their own thing downstairs giving us a very rare Saturday morning of sleeping in.  When I got up I decided to make a big breakfast or rather brunch since it had gotten so late.  My oldest two girls were actually cheerful as they helped clean the kitchen and start cooking.  Everything was going beautifully and I couldn’t help but think it…should have knocked on wood then.

            I sent my younger two downstairs to find some canned fruit to go on top of the waffles.  Before long they started up on fighting which seems to be becoming the norm around here and something we were working on.  In the process of their bickering Stephanie took a swing at her brother who in return jumped out of the way knocking a jar of pears onto the cement floor of the fruit room and spilling the contents all over the floor.

            Jenny and Nan then were called into clean up duty so that the little ones wouldn’t get cut by the sharp glass and so that I could continue on with the breakfast.  Jason promptly set Sam and Steph into respective corners for fighting which I must reiterate has been the norm as of late with them and then joined me to help finish breakfast.  He started making Orange Smoothies forgetting to add ice and neglecting the hash browns on the stove browning them just a little too much, I nearly forgot to turn off the sausage getting them also a little too brown.  We laughed at brunch that Sam and Steph’s fight had jinxed the day.

            If we had only known then…Then we decided to head up north with our Pass of all Passes card in hand to enjoy Laser Tag and Mini Golf and Rock climbing only to realize that I couldn’t find Luke’s pass anywhere.  Searched through the whole house and car with no luck and everyone’s patience frazzled.  Looking on line I found the place to buy a new one for only 9.95, ten dollars less then I originally paid for it, but when it printed off it said that it would be six to eight weeks until it came in the mail.  With receipt in hand we decided to hope for the best that they would still stamp off Luke’s hand and let him in.

            On the way up to Lehi I decided to use the app on my phone and check our bank account to make sure like I do every two weeks that our automatic deposit from work had gone through.  It had as it always does but long and behold what did I find in my looking but that someone had rented a Redbox Movie in California for $2.19 on one of our cards.  We live in Utah not California.  Not a big deal?  No.  But it could have been if I had not so quickly noticed and they had continued on using our debit card.  After calling the bank we found out that one other charge had been made in California for the small price of $3.00.  Great.  Now we were in the process of cancelling Jason’s debit card, the only one we had with us up north for a day of fun with the kids.  Could the morning get any worse?  Luckily for us only a few miles away there was a Wells Fargo that was still open for another ten minutes and they were able to issue Jason a temporary card to use until his new one shows up in the mail.

            At that point our tempers were a little hot and the morning seemed to be one failure after another but then… my children started talking about the broken jar of pears that had started it all and laughing about how ridiculous the morning had become one thing after another.  It wasn’t long until we were all laughing and teasing about everything that had happened.  The rest of the day was wonderful and Luke’s hand did get stamped and we had the best time and in it all I am so happy that whomever had stolen Jason’s card information had only made small purchases and that I had taken the time to look at our bank account that morning before we finished our day and before the thieves had the nerve to start making big purchases out of our account.

            What was starting out to be a big disaster resulted in blessings and stressful moments that very shortly after we were able to laugh at.  Isn’t that how so much of life can be?  One stressful thing after another.  Sometimes I am not always so quick to stand back and smile instead of crying.  I don’t know any other way to get through life and all that seems to come with it bad included with the good then to smile when all you want to do is cry.  Smiling is contagious after all.  One child started laughing about that miserable morning we were having and before long we were all laughing about it and really we should have been.  After all those pears taught Sam and Steph to feel a little repentant about all the fighting that they had been doing and showed Jenny and Nan that even though it was a mess to clean up that together it wasn’t so bad.  Yes Jason may have forgotten the ice in the orange juice and nearly burnt the hash browns and I the sausage but we didn’t and brunch was really yummy and we had plenty to eat.  The debit card was stolen but only a little over five dollars was taken and the card was replaced and it could have been hundreds or even more and the bank would have been closed if I had waited to look another ten minutes more.  Now I know that nothing really huge or really horrible had happened that day but in the past it has and yes sometimes we need to cry a little before we can laugh, but in the end we need to laugh or smile at least.  Life is meant to be enjoyed even when it seems too hard and when our hearts feel too broken we can smile and we can find joy and once we do, when those times feel the hardest, we can appreciate the joy all the more.

            Well on to another week and yes we will have to wait and see what it brings.  Hopefully I can keep smiling and laugh when I want to cry, because really everything seems rosier when we smile.