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By Scotty Seal, Student Editor, UW-Manty News Staff

__It Ain’t That Serious __ I woke up in a good mood this morning to another warm and beautiful day. I set an alarm for seven each morning but usually don’t make it that long because I have another alarm clock in the form of my eleven month old son, Daxton. He was on a pretty good streak of demanding my attention at 5:30 AM for about two weeks. I can’t argue with him when all I see is this big baby smile when I walk into his room. So we are both are up, me with a coffee, and him with a bottle. Daxton watches the Sprout channel while I usually go through my fantasy sports teams, e-mail, and Facebook. This has become our routine at the first sign of daylight this past fall.

We eventually end up in the kitchen sharing breakfast while he babbles the baby talk only he understands. It’s a good time and the best part of my day. But on this day a crabby mama emerged from the bedroom and changed the mood of the breakfast area. She was unusually upset and it may have been from being tired or sore, it didn’t matter, she was not coming out of this mood. There was nothing Daxton and I could say to turn her frown upside down. I became irritated, and being upset that our peaceful morning was disturbed, words were exchanged and followed by arguing. She left for work and me for school after I dropped Daxton off at daycare.

She and I had been happy with how much better we had learned to communicate over the course of this relationship, but today we forgot all that and let our emotions get the best of us. Driving to school I was in deep thought about how this had happened when I saw an adorable little boy, maybe four or five years old at the most, waiting for the bus in a wheelchair. This image struck me hard inside and I found myself going around the block to see the little boy again. After the second time I pulled over a block from where he sat to catch my breath. You see, I had just dropped off my little boy who just started to walk, and here sat this one in a wheelchair.

I thought how lucky I was to have a healthy boy and thoughts of everything I was fortunate enough to have appeared to me. I also have a nephew who is in a wheelchair so seeing a handicapped boy always strikes a nerve within me. I was emotional again, but it was a warm feeling that melted away my anger of the argument.

I should have used a different approach to her awakening upset rather than fuel the problem. It didn’t matter who was right or wrong, the disagreement was just senseless. I couldn’t call her because she was at work so I sent her a text apologizing for being a meathead. I got a quick apology in return and the peace came back to my world. I couldn’t help but want to go and thank the little boy in the chair, but drove on to school. I probably would have looked ridiculous going up to this kid who was there with his mother and saying anything.

It’s another lesson in life that all of us should learn. Too many times we let the pettiness of trivial matters get the best of us and they snowball into harsh words and sometimes, even violence. Next time you find yourself in a similar situation step back, take a deep breath and ask yourself, “is it really that bad, what can I do to change it?”