Mother's Day MOMisms from the secret Mom handbook

            Mothers implant themselves so deeply in our lives, their words never leave us.

            Some people call them MOMisms. When I was a kid, I thought my mom was the only one who said those things. Then I heard other kids’ moms say them. Was there a secret handbook?

            My mom had eyes in the back of her head. She had a built-in radar system to keep track of all 11 of us. And supersonic hearing. She would be sound asleep in her bedroom but heard through the wall my key turning in the front door long after curfew.

            My mom has been gone since 2016, but I can still hear her wisdom. I hope you can hear your mom’s, too:

            “Get down from there!” And “there” was usually a chair, a bookshelf, or a kitchen counter where we climbed to reach the hidden candy stash.

            “You treat your friends better than you treat your own brothers and sisters.” Of course we do. They’re nicer to us.

            We probably heard these 5 words daily: “Why? Because I said so.”

In martyr moments, she’d mutter, “Don’t bother. Why do I even try to have a clean house?”

            If mom called you by your first name, you were guilty of a misdemeanor. If she uses your first and middle name, it was a felony.

“I don’t care who started it!” Mom ended the fight, the argument, the bloody brawl, usually with the threat of calling on dad to end it.

“Who used my (nail clippers, sewing scissors, measuring spoons) and didn’t put them back?”

“You better pray that (grape juice, chocolate, blood) comes out of the (couch, carpet, pillow).”

“If I have to come (in there, up there, down there)...”

“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

“Did you practice piano? Do your homework? Put away the dishes?

“If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?”

“If I told you once, I told you a thousand times (don’t jump on the couch, rock back on the dining room chairs, throw the football in the house.)

On rainy days when we didn’t want to get wet, she’d say, “You’re not sugar, you won’t melt.”

When we couldn’t find something that was right in front of us: “If it was a snake, it would have bit you.”

“You won’t be happy until you break that, will you?” And after we broke it (the lamp, the vase, the chair) she’d say, “I can’t have anything nice in this house.” To which one of us smart alecks would say, “If you wanted nice things, you shouldn’t have had 11 kids.”

“Stop jumping on the (couch, chair, bed, youngest child).”

            “You can’t find it? Well, where did you leave it?” If we knew that, we’d have found it.

            “Someone is going to end up crying.” Pretty much every day. “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.” (And then it’s hysterical, someone would add.)

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Obviously more times. Many more.

“There’s cereal in the cupboard if you don’t like what we’re having for dinner.”

“Close the freezer. It’s not an air conditioner…Turn the lights off. We don’t have stock in the electric company…Close the front door. You don’t live in a barn.”

“Don’t run with (scissors, a lollipop in your mouth, a fork in your hand).”

“I’ve had it up to here with you. Get outside if you’re going to behave like animals.” She’d end our blame game with these words: “I don’t care who started it, I said to stop.”

“Don’t throw that (pencil, eraser, rubber band you just wrapped around your fingers to fling). You’ll put someone’s eye out.” (For the record, all 11 of us still have both eyes, but a few have scars from a childhood that left us in stitches.)

“If you’re bored, I can always find something for you to do.” (Like wash the living room paneling, all 13 dining room chairs, defrost the basement freezer.)

“Just wait until your dad gets home. (Insert funeral music.)

“Don’t sit too close to the TV, it’ll ruin your eyes.”  (Yes, we all have glasses.)

“You’ll be late for your own funeral.” I sure hope so.

“Bored? How can you be bored. Get outside.” Outside was the cure all. “If you insist on killing each other, go outside and do it.”

If you miss your Mom’s voice, take heart.

You will hear it for the rest of your life when her words tumble out of your own mouth.

The last picture of me with my mom, Mary Brett, on Nov. 7, 2016. She died the next day.