Messy Situations. Literally.

I posted this on Facebook this morning:

Your attitude about negative circumstances is so important. Sometimes, all you can do is laugh. If the rest of the day continues like this morning, I'm going to be laughing. A lot. :)

Things happen that are beyond our control. Situations arise that are less-than-pleasant. How you respond to those times can determine your day, your life. You can't change it. So why get upset?

I woke early this morning. I read my Bible and even had time to exercise before my 3-month-old woke up. I fed him while enjoying the quietness of the house as the others were still sleeping. We played together, just the two of us. He smiled. I smiled. He talked. I talked. He threw up all over me. I changed my clothes.

I sat at the table with my baby. All of a sudden, I felt warmth on my lap. Hmm, I thought. My lap feels wet.  I lifted Tyler up and there, where he had been sitting, was a pool of baby poop.

I stood up and instantly felt the warm liquid trickling down my legs. It was then that I really wished someone else was around. I needed help. Someone needed to clean the baby up. Someone needed to clean the floor and chair up. Someone needed to clean me up. That one and only someone was me. All I could do was laugh. For a split second, I debated what to do. I walked the few steps to the counter and grabbed a couple kleenex. I quickly wiped the streaks of pea-green that had reached down to my ankles, and against my better-judgment, trekked across my light-colored carpet to the other side of the house, praying the goopy liquid would not leave its mark on my floor. 

Still laughing because this whole messy situation was so ridiculously grotesque, I set the baby down on a changing mat. I slowly, carefully opened his romper. unsnap . . . unsnap . . . unsnap. Another pool of green goop was waiting for me in his clothing. Still more in his diaper. The smile on his face matched my own. Even he understood how absurd this was.  

I changed his clothes. I changed mine. I cleaned every trace of green from myself and my house. I put my little one down for a well-deserved nap.

It was after this incident that I wrote the above statements as my status.

Fast forward an hour or so.

I reached into my refrigerator for a jar of jelly, a big two-and-a-half-pound jar of jelly. The top, by which I was trying to retrieve the condiment, was not screwed on properly. Thus, I dropped the jar on floor, splattering jelly everywhere. Everywhere. Here I am, wearing ivory-colored capris, covered in deep red jelly. I remembered my words from this morning. And I laughed. Again. 

I rinsed  my clothes, left them to soak in a bucket filled with a stain-removing solution, and headed back to my sticky kitchen. I sopped up piles of jelly from the floor. I washed the sticky substance that was dripping down my oven. I scrubbed my cupboards that were splattered red. I wiped down the backsplash that was doused with more than it anticipated.

I turned to the remaining jelly and grabbed a piece of bread.

"Mommy, I don't want a sandwich anymore."

And I laughed.