Who needs a mirror when you’ve got kids?

If I ever want to do a bit of self-evaluation, it seems that all I need to do is look at my children and I will see not only the good, but all of my faults staring back at me.

Confession time: I have been a grumpy mommy lately. I’m not sure why, but I think it has to do with just being SOOOOOO ready to be done with the waiting and start moving on with our lives. Sort of like the case of “senioritis” Modgirl is experiencing lately. You know, when high school is all but done, projects are handed in, exams are over, and you just. don’t. care. because all you are doing is killing time until graduation so that you can focus on the next big thing?

Yeah. That’s me, with a bad case of “senioritis.” Except that I left high school behind oh so long ago.

Unfortunately my dissatisfaction is showing up in the behavior of my children. Not Superboy so much, he is always pretty mellow-tempered and naturally sunny, so he is rarely affected by my ups and downs. But the little ones have been increasingly volatile lately. Little things cause big squabbles that begin before breakfast and continue until their heads hit the pillows at night.

And let me tell you, it is quite the humbling sight to look at them as they whine and pout and scream and fight and see that the reason behind it all, the silver in the mirror…

it’s me.

It isn’t their fault. They don’t like being this way any more than I like to see it. But a mirror cannot help doing what it does. Mirrors reflect, and they are merely reflecting back at me an image of my own ill-temper. And it isn’t a very pretty sight.

What is to be done? How do I get the image in my little mirrors to return to the happy smiling faces I prefer to see?

It’s obvious, isn’t it?

I need to clean up my own act, remove the ugly tarnish of impatience and discontent, put on a smile, and polish up that silver until it shines back in the faces of my children.

Anybody got any Windex?