At one point during a game, the coach said to one of his young players in a Little League Basketball, “Do you understand what cooperation is? What a team is?†Little Johnny nodded in the affirmative.
“Do you understand that what matters is whether we win together as a team?†Again, Little Johnny nodded yes.
“So,†the coach continued, “When a foul is called, or you’re called out of the game, you don’t argue or curse or attack the referee. Do you understand all that?†Johnny nodded yes.
“Good,†said the coach. “Now go over there, and explain it to your mother.â€
Now that’s a mother isn’t it?
Question: How would you know you’re a mother? Easy. Look at this old material I got from the net:
You know you are a mom when:
1. Your feet stick to the kitchen floor… And you don’t care.
2. The kids are fighting, and you threaten to lock them in a room together and not let them out until someone’s bleeding.
3. You can’t find your cordless phone, so you ask a friend to call you, and you run around the house madly, following the sound until you locate the phone downstairs in the laundry basket.
4. You spend an entire week wearing sweats.
5. Your idea of a good day is making it through without a child leaking bodily fluids on you.
6. Popsicles become a food staple.
7. Your favorite television show is a cartoon.
8. Peanut butter and jelly is eaten at least in one meal a day.
9. You’re so desperate for adult conversation that you spill your guts out to the telemarketer that calls, and HE hangs up on YOU!
10. Spit is your number one cleaning agent.
11. You’re up each night until 10 p.m. vacuuming, dusting, wiping, washing, drying, loading, unloading, shopping, cooking, driving, flushing, ironing, sweeping, picking up, changing sheets, changing diapers, bathing, helping with homework, paying bills, budgeting, clipping coupons, folding clothes, putting kids to bed, dragging kids out of bed, brushing, chasing, buckling, feeding (them, not you), PLUS swinging, playing basketball, bike riding, pushing trucks, cuddling dolls, roller-blading, basketball, football, catching bubbles, playing with sprinklers, sliding, having nature walks, coloring, doing crafts, jumping rope, PLUS raking, trimming, planting, edging, mowing, gardening, painting and walking the dog. You get up at 5:30 a.m., and you have no time to eat, sleep, drink or go to the bathroom, and yet... You still manage to gain 10 pounds!
12. In your bathroom, there is toothpaste on the light fixtures, water all over the floor, a dog drinking out of the toilet and body hair forming a union to protest unsafe working conditions.
13. You buy cereal with marshmallows in it.
14. The closest you get to gourmet cooking is making rice crispies bars.
Let me summarize everything for you.
You know you’re a mother when you embark on the most important and honorable task of forming the next generation with godly principles, preparing them to be salt of the earth and light of the world, and to make a positive contribution to society and to the country. Such is the responsibility and work of the mom.
No, it’s never true that being a mother is a waste of personal talent and opportunity. Abraham Lincoln said, “No man is poor who has had a godly mother.†Clergyman and social reformer Henry Ward Beecher said “The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.†Meanwhile, a Spanish proverb goes, “An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.â€
But listen to what Oliver Wendell Holmes, considered as one of the best writers of the 19th century, had to say: “Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.â€
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers!
(Develop your leadership skills and spend two whole days with Francis Kong on May 28-29 at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. For further inquiries, contact Lylee at 09228980196, or call 632-6310912 for details.)