My Baby, My Favorite Mirror

"Life is like a mirror. We get the best results when we smile at it." - Author Unknown

If you've ever spent any time with me, you know that the following words do not typically apply to my face: animated, expressive, dramatic. I am a person who is constantly expressing myself in my head, but it rarely translates to my face. I don't know why; I'm just built that way. I am a magnet for strangers who come up to me with the sole purpose of telling me to smile. I hate this, but I'm used to it.

My dear baby, Jac, is changing this about me. I realized a couple of months into his life that the best way to get him to smile was to smile at him. It sounds simple, but it just didn't occur to me right away. I had been oozing happiness since the second Jac was born, but that didn't mean that I was always smiling.

Once I had this realization, I tried to be very conscious of my facial expressions. I started smiling, and making all kinds of faces, all the time. I loved seeing Jac's face reflect the expressions I was making. Of course, after putting in such conscious effort to have my emotions translate to my face, this started occurring naturally all the more.

Now, I consider Jac to be a mirror - my very favorite mirror. When I watch his face, I see my emotions reflected right back at me. Being a stay at home mama means that Jac and I spend more time looking at each other's faces than almost anything else. That is a pretty amazing fact. Most likely, no one has spent as much time as Jac has looking at my face since my own mother was a stay at home mama to my baby self. Therefore, I might as well make this face look as wonderful as possible for my baby boy.

I rarely spend time looking in real mirrors these days, but I don't have to wonder what I look like because I see my most important features when I look at Jac's face. My mirror son doesn't reflect back the drool on my shoulder, the tangled hair, and the dark circles under my eyes. He reflects back my happiness, and this is all that this mama needs to see.

And now, Jac will pass along his smiles to you: