Thought of the Day

Do you ever have the idea that the grass MAY be greener on the other side? Today I had that thought for a split second, and then I realized that life may throw us some bumps in the road, but living in the moment is so much better than wishing for another time in life. Here's how my day lead up to this thought. Hannah is usually great in the car so I decided to head to University Village to do a little shopping. Usually when I go I leave before noon to avoid traffic, but I thought today I would take the risk leaving at 1:30. Once we got to U Village, after taking the wrong exit, we headed into our first store. We had a return to make and we ended up getting the cashier that was new and didn't know how to do an online return. I was willing to be patient until Hannah decided that she didn't want to be patient and started to scream. We're talking full on scream, not just a little whimper, or cry, but SCREAM. Ten minutes later we left the store, and the second we were outside Hannah was asleep again. I took that opportunity to head into another store. Things were nice and quiet up until I went into the dressing room to try on a few things. That's when the screaming started again. After leaving that store empty handed I felt like I deserved a treat from the Confectionery, which is this huge candy shop. Once in that store Hannah was back at it. To make matters worse I had to wait behind these 2 kids with their mom that were taking FOREVER to decide what to spend there $1.00 on. After 3 stores of complete failure I had one last place to go into before heading back home. I had to go into the grocery store. I knew I had to be fast because now she was asleep again, but I was definitely on borrowed time. Into the store we went without my list that I know I brought, but couldn't find. Things were going well, until we got to the check out line. As luck would have it that I got in the line behind someone that had a price discrepancy. I wanted to give them the difference of money myself just so I could check out and get outside. It's funny when you're in public and your baby is crying the looks you get. The moms close to our age always give a look of sorrow, like they can relate and they feel bad. The older moms look at us like we're neglecting our children and being a bad mom. After the grocery store we were back in the car heading home. We got stuck in traffic, not on the freeway, but getting to the freeway passing by the University of Washington. That's when I had the thought that I would love to go back 10 years to when I was in college. Life was so much simpler. Life consisted of going to class if you felt like it, taking tests, hanging out with friends, going on dates...the carefree life. No crying babies in the car, mortgage payments, finding a job that offers a 401K and health insurance, paying your own bills, not going on dates with your husband every weekend. But when I looked into my rear view mirror and saw Hannah screaming I thought about how life is now and that I wouldn't trade it for anything. If we are always thinking about how life COULD BE instead of enjoying the way LIFE IS, we will miss out on so many wonderful moments. NO, the grass is not always greener on the other side!