Round One: The Fight Begins

One morning when you least expect it, you'll look in the mirror and find it looking back at you. The phantasm bears a slight resemblance to your familiar self, except... Is it possible that your husband installed a trick mirror while you were dozing, just for kicks? This gal has...

• Eyes bloodshot from getting up every two hours with one toddler's night terrors and the other's asthma attacks.
• Stomach is rumbling from not eating a decent meal since... What is this? May?
• Throat is raw from screaming like a fishwife, just to hear yourself above the din.
• In the same set of sweats you've worn all week, sans bra. Even to the doctor's office.

And as the bathroom door reverberates with the pounding of three insistent sets of little fists, you pray the lock will hold long enough for you to sit down for five seconds and have one coherent thought.

Suddenly, it hits you:

This is not what I signed up for. I don't recognize that ghoulish figure in the mirror. She's grouchy. She's wrinkled and rumpled, and so are her clothes. She smells like baby barf. Make her go away.

Easier said than done. But if you watch my back, and I watch yours, maybe we can figure this out together. We'll get those Mommy Monsters.