Back when Lucy and I were in the hospital for her back surgery (HERE), the world spinning around her after her surgery, wanting to cling on to something solid and safe and good to get her mind off of the pain, she asked me to tell her a “Mirror Land” story.

And that request turned my heart right into mush…memories flooded in from days gone by when I would snuggle with my children, pulling imagination out and infiltrating my smiling kids with all the adventures that happened in that land through the mirror.

I explained the ins and outs of this “Land” in a blog post long ago (back HERE), but I figured, in honor of Father’s Day yesterday, now would be a good time to revisit it since my Dad is the one who laced the beauties of Mirror Land into our imaginations all those years ago. Anyone with a young family can use this little number as a parenting hack, as well as a handle to grasp onto some day when those children need some comfort to hold onto like Lucy did in the hospital. Stories and imagination are powerful things.

So here you go!

There’s this magical land far away called “Mirror Land.” In this land, there’s this family called the “Spunks” that is exactly like ours. A mom, a dad, one boy and four crazy girls. The weird thing is that not only is this family just like ours on paper, but they look exactly like us too. We can see the Spunks any time we want…just by looking in the mirror. It’s amazing. And when we’re peeking in on them, they copy everything we do. It’s completely magic!

There are just a few small differences between our family and theirs. First, instead of their names being Max, Elle, Grace, Claire & Lucy, they are called Hunk, Flower, Sparkle, Butterfly and Rainbow (please note that I had no say over the names). Oh, and their Dad’s name is Grump-apotomus (self-named), and their Mom’s name is Pixie (she grew up always hearing and knowing about the “Doolittle” family in Mirror Land…the family exactly like the one she grew up in).

The other difference is that in Mirror Land, the family just like ours works together perfectly. When their mom asks them to do their jobs, within minutes, Voila! they’re done. They don’t have any fighting, and they’re always kind to each other.

I know it’s almost impossible to comprehend (ha ha), but our family here in the real world doesn’t always work like that! The kids have been forgetting to make their beds in the morning. They’ve been throwing clothes on the floor when they change. They’ve been leaving scraps of drawings and crayons all over the place. So the other night after Grace and Claire had to miss out on story time before bed because their room was so messy that we had to spend our reading time picking things up instead of snuggling together reading a book, I let them in on some very important details about their mirror twins Sparkle and Butterfly. Because, as chance has it, they had the same issue a while ago. But they learned their lesson and now their room is always clean. Those mirror girls realized that it’s so much easier to just put their clothes away or in the hamper right when they took them off rather than letting things pile up and making it so hard to clean up. And now they’re always happy because they get to play with friends after school and every night they get to have story time since they keep their room so darn spic and span.

And guess what? The magic transferred from Mirror Land into our land! The last few days Grace and Claire’s room has been spotless when Grace leaves for school. And do you know what else? It’s always spotless at night too so we can have a long story time just like Sparkle and Butterfly do.

We’ll see how long this lasts, but for now boy oh boy, I love those good examples in Mirror Land.

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6 Comments

  1. Oh what grand memories! You took a great idea and made it even better! I”m not sure that cleaning up ever worked in the Mirror Land at our place. What a great idea! Dang! Too late! Haha!

  2. This is beautiful! Passing on to my daughter in law. She is working hard to instill these good characteristics in the babies and this is such a kind beautiful way. Really enjoy your blog!!!

  3. have you ever read last of the really great wangdoodles? It may be too young for Lucy but it’s my favorite book from childhood and your mirror land story reminds me of it.

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