Balance

This past weekend, DH and I gave my car a half-ass thorough cleaning so it would be presentable for my parents when they visit this weekend. (Aside: YIPEE!!!!!!!! My parents are flying in on Saturday!!!!!!!!!) We also moved our respective crap into our respective cars, trading back our vehicles after I had been driving DH's Mazda for the past couple of weeks. Car seat: check. Chick music: check. Monogrammed polka-dot coffee sleeve: check. All the important stuff.

On Monday morning I woke up bright and early and showered before Bean awoke. On the calendar: kids book club with the MOMS Club. Bean doesn't give a crap about the book being read, but he does enjoy having all the toys to himself while the other kids sit and listen to the story. Obviously he didn't get that from me. Anyway, I went to look up the address we'd be going to at 10 am, only to discover the activity had been pushed back to 11:30 am, exactly when Bean goes down for a nap. I sighed, shrugged, and decided we'd go to the park by ourselves at 10 am instead.

Also that morning I noticed the stroller was laying in the dining room by the front door. DH needed to leave at 4 am, and he had fortunately discovered it in his trunk before heading out on a business trip. That was close! I picked it up and in nothing short of laziness, put it in the garage next to my car. Could have popped the trunk and put it in, but I didn't.

Conversation in my head:

"I'll just leave it here by the front tire. I'll see it when we get in the car and put it in the trunk then."

"No, you won't. You are going to accidentally leave it right here."

"I won't! Look, it's impossible to miss! I would have to step over it to get into the garage."

"You will find a way to forget it. Trust me."

"Eh. Whatever."

Back inside, the phone rang. It was a friend from preschool and MOMS Club. She had also discovered the inconvenient time change on the book club meeting, and she wondered if I'd like to go for a walk with her instead. Of course! She wasn't sure how to give directions to the trailhead she had in mind, so we agreed to meet in a Starbucks parking lot and drive over together.

Bean and I pulled up to the Starbucks right on time. I did run over a curb in the parking lot on the way in, but whatevs, doesn't everybody do that now and then? (I guiltily remembered when DH nailed one last week, and I exclaimed with an accusing tone, "HONEY!" Man, I'm a bitch sometimes.) We drove to the trail, I opened my trunk, and...

... no stroller. Are you picking up on a theme here? Yes, the stroller was in the garage, exactly where it didn't need to be. *smack*

In retrospect, I should have just let my friend go on the walk with her son, gotten back in the car, and headed back home. Bean was not in a cooperative mood -- he screamed bloody murder when I suggested that he sit in my friend's stroller (she had a carrier she used for her son to kindly free up her stroller for us), and Heaven forbid! he should take two steps on his own. No, the only solution was for me to carry him. Ugh. Being tired and hot... lugging a 20-whatever pound toddler... it was not pretty. But I did enjoy chatting with my friend, as much as I could huff out along the way.

After lunch and Bean's nap, we went to Costco with another friend. She doesn't have a membership and wanted to check out their air conditioners, so I offered to take her. On the drive over, I noticed the car was handling weird. Very bumpy, definitely not right. I parked and got out of the car, and a nice man walked up to me.

"I hate to tell you this, ma'am," he started. "But your rear right tire is completely flat."

Well WHADDAYA FREAKIN' KNOW?! It was.

Damn that curb.

I considered my options and consulted with AAA. In the end, I had the guys at the Costco tire shop take a look at it. They filled it with air, and we all watched as a huge gaping hole hissed that air right back out at us.

New tire: $124.

Ironically, the exact same price as the speeding ticket I got last week.

Yes, it was lucky that this happened within feet of a tire shop.

However, I can't help but think... really? Another $124?

Perhaps all this trouble I'm having lately is the Universe balancing itself. I mean, my incredible luck -- to have this life growing inside me. (I'm hopeful that it is still growing, as my sense of nausea seems to be.) With only one round of infertility treatment, just a tiny fraction of the heartache it took to conceive our son, it blows my mind that we could actually be holding a newborn come April.

It could be just my own stupidity, forgetting my wallet, getting a speeding ticket, leaving the stroller in the garage, running over a curb, popping the tire...

But nah, I'm pretty sure it's the Universe.