Memories (sing it with me now) like the corner of my mind...

photo courtesy of here

I do love the funnies from Anne Taintor.  Every month I get to see a new pic, similar to the one above, on my Anne Taintor calendar.

The pic above was from July.

Even though I don't have any children of my own, I'm sure that my mom must have felt like this at some point when my brothers and I were kids.  (She did threaten on numerous occasions to turn in her "Mother's Certificate".  Her mom quickly pointed out to her that even if she could find the place to turn in her certificate, she would get there and discover that the line was WAY too long and would just turn around and head for home.)

It got me thinking about one such time when mom would've loved us, but not liked us.

Picture with me, if you will, a good sized apartment downtown Adana, Turkey.  The year is 1980.  3 kids holed up with their mom while their dad is on the Air Force base at work.  Said kids are bored out of their ever lovin' minds and are pretty much up to no good.  (I can't even tell you what it is exactly that we were doing, but whatever it was, it was using mom's last nerve as a jump rope.  I'm sure it may have had something to do with noises we could make with our own bodies.  Armpit farts, blowing raspberries on our arms, etc.because that stuff is funny to kids.) 

Our apartment building didn't have a yard.  All the neighborhood kids basically played in the street.  Fortunately, it was a relatively quiet street, unless you count the sheep slaughtering during Ramadan, but I digress.  That's a whole other story.  Therefore, mom couldn't say to us, "You kids need to go outside and play."  (Because that's what you did when you were a kid in the 80s, you went outside to play.)

So there we were, driving mom up a wall, she had told us multiple times to knock it off, but of course we just couldn't help ourselves.  Finally, the last straw was drawn and she told the 3 of us to head for the kitchen.

(Remember, this was the early 80s, we got spanked with a wooden spoon back then for misbehaving.)

We lined up to be given the "What For".  Mom walked over to one of the drawers, pulled out a handcarved Turkish wooden spoon, which was really big and thick (that's what she said), and gave it a good hard whack on the marble countertop for emphasis to what she was telling us.

The three of us just stood there gaping as a huge chunk of the wooden spoon broke off and went flying end over end through the air.  One of us tried holding back a snicker, which only set the other two off.  Fits of giggles ensued.  We couldn't help ourselves.  Pretty sure we got sent to our rooms at that point.

Good times.  I'm sure that most moms feel this way at some point while raising their children.

Love ya, Mom!  And thanks for putting up with our antics way back then.