Things My Mom Said, and Things She Did Not Know About...

Now that I am a mom myself, I think back to the things my mother said to me growing up.  I have even found myself saying them to my children.  I stop myself and think, "My goodness, I am turning into my mother."  


1.  "If you push your sister down the stairs and she loses an eye, you will have to give your sister your eye".


This scared the crap out me.  I truly believed she would haul me off to the hospital and make me give Courtney my eye if I had caused her to lose hers.  One thing we used to do, and something she knew nothing about, was take our comforters and slide down the stairs with them.  Every Saturday morning, we would haul our blankets from our bedroom and make nice slides.  We would go sailing down the stairs.  We would open the door (which was located directly at the bottom of the staircase) and see how far we could get.  Now, just to let you know, neither of us ever got hurt.  We spent countless hours doing this.  When we were older, we told her how the comforters made great sleds:)


2.  "No man is worth the salt in your tears."


I have said this same thing to friends when I was older.  I spent countless hours crying over break-up from boyfriends.  I was devastated...and my mom's word of advice was this!  At the time I thought she was crazy, but by golly, she is right.  No boyfriend was worth that time I spent crying in my self pity.  I still live by this today:)


3.  "If Courtney was to jump off a bridge, would you follow her?"


Well duh mom!  Of course I would!  


4.  "You never leave home without mascara."


For those of you who know my mom, she always has makeup on!  There have been times when mom had to go pick up Tanner late from getting off the Cross Country bus, and sure enough, mom may have her pajama's on under her coat, but I can guarantee you that she has on her mascara!


There are times When I go to mom house with no makeup on.  Come on..I just don't feel like wearing it some days, and sometimes I really just don't care.  She will say "Where is your makeup?"  I say...at home :)


5.  "Never go in water deeper than your ankles."


This came from her being afraid to swim.  When we used to stay at our dad's for a month in the summer, she always pushed this into our heads.  She was so afraid that we would drowned.  Of course, we never listened to her on this on.  My dad would take us to the beaches in Manistique and we always swam in the beautiful water.


6.  "The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plane."


Why she said this?  Who knows.  Did it ever make sense to us?  No! But, she still said it.  


7.  "Why buy the cow if you get the milk for free?"


I will leave that one to your imagination.  


These are some of the things I did as a child that my mom never knew about:


1.  Played with my Great-Grandmothers good dishes in the early mornings on Saturday's.
2.  Gather up as much food as I could in the kitchen and sell it to pretend people.
3.  Wear my mom's good shoes around the house and hide them.
4.  Pretend I was Wonder Woman in her high heeled knee boots.
5.  Use the vacuum as a microphone.
6. Wear her silky night gowns as dresses and put on a crinoline underneath it.
7.  Tap dance on her coffee table (which she ultimately found out about because of the scratches)
8.  Throw my raisin packs away that she would pack for me in my lunch.
9.  Use my lunch money to buy things from the school store.
10.  Pretend I was Olivia Newton-John.
11.  I had this dresser in my room that we were not allowed in.  It has all of our Hush Puppy Shoes in it.  I used to open it and put the shoes on and play in them.  Then put them back ever so neatly!
12.  Pretend my window was a bank teller's window.  The Monopoly Money was used for this:)
13.  I used to tell "tall tales" to my friends and teachers.  She found out about this when I was in Kindergarten and told my teacher that my mom would not be attending conferences because she was in the hospital with a broken leg.  My teacher believed me and was shocked when mom showed up!
14.  Pretend I was one of "Bob Barkers Beauties" and I would show off all of her expensive china.  Anything we were not allowed to touch was up for grabs to me.
15.  Courtney and I used to climb up the top of a snow pile and then onto our garage roof.  We would then proceed to jump off of the roof and into the snow.  How stupid were we?
16.  We used to sneak next door to the neighbors house and eat all of her raspberry's off of her bushes.  Sorry, Mrs. Manchester!
17.  Secretly long to be just like her!


That felt good :)  While some of these things she knows about now, others she does not.  Through the years, I have told her about some of them and she has been shocked.  And I obviously don't care if she knows now.  These are wonderful childhood memories for me and I will be calling her to let her know about others.


So thank you Mom for the wonderful advice.  Many of it I took, and others I have let fall to the waste side.  But I appreciate you steering me in the right direction....


Until next time my friends:)


Shelby