He moves in mysterious ways

Skeet peers out onto the Fox River in Carpentersville.

God reveals himself all the time. Sometimes in a thought that pops into your head, sometimes in beauty you observe in nature, and other times he's a tattoo artist named Skeet.
I've been pretty pissed off since about 1 a.m. last night, when Addie fell out of bed several times, and then continued to torture us with everything from "I'm hungry!" to "I'm thirsty!" to "I want mommie!" to "I wanna sleep in your bed!" to "I don't want mommie to sleep in my bed!" to "Where are my fig newtons?" to, well, you get the picture. It was an awful night.
I had planned to get back in the swing of things by hitting the treadmill at the Y this morning, unofficially kicking off my 'get back into shape' routine. Wasn't stoked about it, but finally felt motivated to make it happen. That is, until 1 am came along. Long story short, I ended up turning off my alarm, knowing that I wasn't going to get the full night's sleep I had planned, and going back to bed in Addie's room.
And as if the night wasn't long enough, Addie decided to make it another challenging morning for us. By the time the girls left the house, I was cooked.
No workout, not as much sleep as I had planned, and a boatload of attitude from the one who caused it all.
Pissed. Off.
All the while, I'm wondering how I can reconcile all this in my head, be a good dad, and press on with the task of raising a daughter who seems hell-bent on making our lives difficult. I remember thinking "help me" as I finally dozed off around 2:30 last night, wishing I could just see some way to keep my sanity.
Then I had an assignment this morning to photograph a 52-year-old tattoo artist.
We met at an old railroad tressle over the Fox River where he had spent much of his childhood playing in and around the tracks as trains came and went. During the course of our conversation, he mentioned that he was thinking alot about one of his kids (he's a single dad of 25 years) who had died at 31 from drug issues. I made what I thought were some really nice pictures of him in a spot that was clearly close to his heart. As we were finishing up and heading back to our respective warm cars, he told me to enjoy those kids of mine, as I had of course mentioned that I had two daughters during our conversation.
"Their a lot of fun... most of the time," I said, clearly thinking of the events of last night.
Then with a wave as he hopped into his car he said "When you lose one, those times don't matter."
Bam.
There it was, my morning rendezous with God, in the form of a long-haired hippy tattoo parlor owner.