Perspective

I complain often. I complain a lot. Mainly, this is because I worry. I worry a lot. This past week, however, watching the nightly national news, sometimes turning it off in deference to an extremely sensitive Miss Mouse who thinks "the kids must need some bandaids", the fears and concerns I focus much of my time on were put in perspective.

*I worry about what to feed the girls. Today in the grocery store on a quiet shopping trip with only the eldest Mouse, I agonized in the baby food aisle about whether or not to buy the Gerber corn-veggie-sticks (or something like that). There is an ingredient on them that I suspect masks an msg-type additive. I despise those types of additives and get worried about the girls consuming them.....but I don't have to worry about whether or not my little Mice will eat tonight.

*I wonder and worry about how long to nurse Baby Mouse, how to wean, when to wean, whether to let her lead things, whether I'm going to go insane nursing still at night and losing sleep, whether I'd be up anyway with a then-inconsolable Baby Mouse.....but I don't have to worry about having clean water to drink and food to eat so that I continue having a milk supply.

*I worry about college funds, not being able to put away as much as we are advised to do (or put away period?), the availability of scholarships, the pressure on the girls to perform well to get those scholarships, the loans they'd have to take out, the loans we'd have to co-sign.....but I don't ever have to worry about whether or not my girls will even be able to learn to read, write, spell, add, etc.

*I worry about the girls getting cavities (I have none, so I do worry)......but I don't have to worry that they will get diseases from the water used to brush their teeth.

*I worry that the girls won't be on the right sports teams, in the right clubs in town, taking lessons from the right people to go "far enough" in life and that maybe they'll someday resent that we didn't structure our family and our values differently to make that happen for them.......but I don't have to worry about where they will sleep at night.

*I worry and get irritated when our electricity goes off for five hours at a time (twice this happened in the past week)......but I don't have to worry about whether or not it will actually ever come back on.

*I worry about more serious things, too, but it's wasted time, by and large, because usually nothing fruitful comes of the worry. I have some plans and dreams for activities that could help others who actually do have to worry about some of the things I listed, but those ideas came not from worry as much as concerned thought and prayer.

At one point this week I asked Mr. T. if it wasn't ridiculous to be so incredibly bothered by the situation in Haiti (and that was just the tip-of-the-iceberg of 'bothering' for me....it led me to be upset about so many sad, scary situations in the world); his response was that perhaps I was bothered enough to figure out how to do something about it. I think he was right, and I hope his way of thinking is true for many others than me. Maybe when we see poverty, pain, and terror in such clarity, in such real-time focus, maybe it is then that we are truly "bothered enough to do something". With two Toddler Mice, I won't be running off on any on-site mission trips in the near future, but I think there are plenty of things to be done right in our own backyard (clue #1). Oh, and I bought those silly veggie-kid-sticks for the Baby Mouse.....but she won't be eating them often. :)