I hate days like this!

It rained overnight, and so, with the temperatures being lower than it should, the water that fell, turned to ice.  There are accidents all over the city, and they have the expressway by my house shut down.  I didn't know this, getting ready for work.  I left at my normal time, because I only work a few miles from home.  I live in between two entrance ramps to the expressway.  I could take either on any given day.  Today, I went to one, and as I drove up to it, I looked down from the overpass and saw that the expressway was down to a crawl.  So I said to myself, "Ok, self....just go take the other one.  It's bound to be better up that way."  So, that's exactly what I did.  Only, when I got down there, I got stuck in traffic because that, too, was closed.  Great!  At this time, it's about 8:10.  I have to have my classroom open around 8:20 for the students.  My only other option would be to go back over toward the first entrance, go past it, and take the long way with the city roads and side streets.  So, needless to say, I didn't get to work on time.  I got here about 8:30.  Only ten minutes late, but let me tell you, it was not a good start to the day.  And before that, Brownie was having a meltdown at home.  She begged and begged me last night to put a peel off mask on her face.  Even after telling her numerous times that it would hurt coming off, and that she wouldn't like it, she still insisted.  SO, I did....and she threw a fit when it was time to take it off.  She wouldn't let me take the rest of it off.  So she slept with it on her face last night.  Well, I HAD to take it off this morning before she went to school.  She threw a roayl fit!  I've never seen her like this.  She was thrashing, kicking, and screaming the whole time.  Now, had she just listened to me when I told her that she wouldn't like it, I wouldn't have been in that predicament.  Note to self:  when you know something is not going to end up well, don't do it!  I had to waste 10 minutes of my time this morning fussing with her face, getting those pieces of mask off so she would be able to get to school.  Had I done that, maybe I would have left earlier, and then maybe I wouldn't have been late to school.  You know, what my mom used to say is right:  Hindsight is 20/20.  I should have listened to her more.  Now that I'm older, it really is true.  I should have listened to my parents more.  Actually, I've turned into my parents.  I find myself disciplining my kids the same way they did me.  I find myself SAYING things that they used to say.  Example:  "You just wait until your father gets home!" and see the kids run in fear.  I even look at myself in the mirror and see expressions on my own face that I used to cringe at when my mom and dad made.  It's amazing...I really have turned into them.  I can't say that I'm unhappy about it though.  As a teen, you always say, "I am never going to be like my parents."  And as you grow up, and you mature and have a family of your own, you realize that they aren't that bad after all.  I tell this to my students all the time.  A lot of them, they get angry with their parents and they move out.  They don't think about the future.  What kid does, you know?  So, I tell them all the time how the only reason their parents do what they do is because they love their children.  And I also tell them that they shouldn't take their parents for advantage because they won't be around forever.  I tell them how I would give anything to have just one more moment with my mother.  But I can't, because she's gone, and I can't have her back.  They don't see the repercussions of their actions when they're teenagers.  I hope and pray that my daughters learn the same way I did, and I pray that, when they grow up and have THEIR own families, that they say and see things in them that they used to see and hear in me.