“Stop fighting with your sister!”

“I just want you to love each other.”

“Oh Lord, what are these kids going to be like when they are older?”

“My greatest accomplishment will be not to kill one of them.”

These are all phrases uttered at one time or another by a person my brother, sister and I tested daily….Mom. We were her greatest joy and her greatest frustration during the years she was trying to raise us to be respectable.

I mentioned having two boys in the span of 18 months was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, well Mom had it worse. She had two kids in the span of 4 days less than a year apart. My sister and brother are what she likes to call, “Irish Twins.” I was her first born, born 5 years earlier. Not only was I the oldest, but being 5 years old when my sister was born I soon became “Ms. Mommy.” I had a real living doll to torture play with. The only problem with this plan is that my sister is what you nicely call the “strong willed child.”  She was not going to be told what to do by anyone!  Hence the problem and over 15 years of fighting and driving my Mom absolutely crazy!!

Mind you my sister and I would fight with each other but if anyone attacked from the outside they soon realized we were not a force to be reckoned with.  We were each other’s punching bag not anyone else’s! My poor brother spent his life hiding from these crazy girls.  But that is ok, he now has great experience for his own daughter and will find life’s craziness in raising his own TWIN boys.

Poor Mom would work her heart out, but as soon as Dad came home from work both of us girls ran to him.  You see Dad could do no wrong, it was all Mom’s fault.  I know now as a Mother what it feels like to be under appreciated (sorry Mom). I am sure if she had the idea below, she would have used it on my sister and I!!

Now each of us siblings are married with our own families.  Mom survived.  Mom is the support my sister and I lean on daily.  She is our biggest cheerleader, the one we call crying when life knocks us down, and she is the one that encourages us to keep learning more about God.

My prayer is that she is like her own mother and lives to see her own great grandchildren before God calls her home.

Mom, thank you for all the hard work and sacrifices you made to raise us crazy girls and son.  Happy Mother’s Day!!!

But I am telling you the truth, it really was sissy’s fault! I am innocent I swear.
(love you sis)

** No that is not me in the picture, that is my sister and brother. Do you know I don’t own one picture of the three of us????? (just saying Mom)