What is the opposite of Murphy's Law? What do you call it when you come so close to everything going wrong but it goes right instead? I was thinking about this the other day. Stephen was in the kitchen making Jonathan's bottle before bed. (Yes, our 1 3/4 year old still takes a bottle -- and it's not even real milk. It's formula. And we put him to bed with it. The mommy police have a warrant out for me, I'm sure.) Jonathan and I followed him in there, and I asked Jonathan to give mommy a kiss. Just as Jonathan stepped out of the way to give me a kiss, Stephen dropped the formula can or the bottle or some such thing in a very dramatic way exactly where Jonathan had been standing seconds before.
I thought of this again today. As a parent, things are often chaotic. Thank God we haven't yet lost Baby Giraffe or anything REALLY important. (And I really mean thank God. We've had at least one really close call with that one.) But the first time we took Jonathan out to church we managed to lose my purse folding up the stroller in the dark as it was starting to rain, and who hasn't been out and found a really, really nasty nappy only to find shortly thereafter that the baby had removed all the diapers from the bag before you left the house? (Fortunately when that happened to us I hadn't yet removed the old nappy and we were really close to home, but still ...)
But today, it worked out just right. I usually get a piece of toasted sugar-butter-French-bread (loose translation) and a latte at the coffee shop across the street every "morning" (or at least, what passes here for morning). I call down for it, and Stephen usually picks it up for me since he's nice like that (and I am the one up past dawn with Vivienne who takes night-owl-ism to a whole new extreme). However, some days (like Tuesdays) Stephen is barely at home, what with church meetings and private teaching and his job, and if we can manage to get up and out (and find where Jonathan has left keys and shoes and other such things), I load the babies into their Cadillac (a.k.a. double stroller) and go pick up breakfast myself. Then we stop at the Cultural Center to eat and usually head on to the playground in a near-by apartment complex. (Or, today, mommy's Chinese isn't as clear as it could be, we get milk tea instead of coffee which Jonathan's "sip" turns into almost the whole cup while mommy is distracted talking to another mommy at the Cultural Center and we go back to get mommy's latte again before proceeding on to the playground by way of the really cute-and-cheap baby clothes sidewalk display, but you know how that goes.)
Today, the other mother I was talking to warned of rain, but we went on anyway. After weeks of typhoon/tropical storm induced rains and thunderstorms, overcast counts as practically sunny. At the playground, rumbles of thunder could be heard, but we had already made it so far, it seemed a shame to waste the trip. Jonathan wasn't too into the playground today, but he ran around for a bit and then he and mommy went on the big, double bench swing where the first drops started to fall and I finally decided to heed the signs and start home, which was several blocks away. Now, I had two umbrellas with me, but in a tropical downpour, I am not sure how much of the massive stroller we would be able to cover. Fortunately, it barely rained the whole way home and the two canopies on the stroller were more than sufficient cover. Shortly after returning home, the floodgates of heaven opened, but we were safe and sound.
It's so wonderful when everything that can go wrong doesn't. I guess that's just when you say, "Thank you, Jesus," and count yourself as blessed.
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