Attitude adjustment

I often wish I could instantly perform an attitude adjustment on my kids, to help them make the best of situations.

I've talked a bit about my own attitude lately, and I made myself the beneficiary of another attitude adjustment a few days ago, with great success. My mother-in-law was here last week (groans of recognition from the peanut gallery, please) -- this mother-in-law, lest you forget.

I had a cold the day she got here and was feeling less than energetic, but L had to teach, so I had to hurry Jellybean out of preschool, come home and shove some lunch in us, load everyone into the car, drive 30 minutes to the airport and get Grandma, then come home and put crashing tired kids in their beds. I'm not complaining; it was just a bit of an orchestration.

So I started her visit out on the wrong foot because I was fatigued from both the illness and the hectic day. And, her initial 6 hours here were spent with only me -- no L to buffer and take in the craziness, er, energy from Grandma. (see? still retroactively adjusting my attitude) As a result, I was grouchier than usual. I'm normally very calm and at ease as a hostess, letting everything slide. But I couldn't resist a few jabs here and there. I was kinda rude, for me.

Initially, I was annoyed because she brought tons of presents -- so many that she couldn't fit her winter coat into her suitcase (not a smart thing to be without in March in Michigan). Christmas was in December, yet she had five presents for each girl. Um, we have lots of toys here; it's a house with little kids. The girls tore into the gifts after their naptime. Turns out that most of them were actually activities that Grandma wanted to do during her visit. Very clever.

From there, everything she said and did was rubbing me the wrong way for about the next 24 hours. I took every opportunity to mention to L how irritated I was with this, that and the other. That went over like a lead balloon.

As my head started to clear from the cold, my cloud of negativity did too. I realized that the girls were having a blast, she loves them more than life itself, and life is too short not to embrace every moment with loved ones.

Somehow, after that, everything we did with Grandma was much more fun for me. Gee, I wonder why.