Words to Live By

"Penny, penny, make me lucky. I'm the one who picked you uppy."

This was one of my Mom's favorite sayings. Any time we found a penny on the ground, we had to pick it up and recite the mantra. Doesn't work with other coins, only pennies.

Mom had other pearls of wisdom:

• Don't raise your hand in anger or it will turn to stone
• If you make a funny face, it may stay that way for the rest of your life
• Shut up and answer me!! (that was always a quandry)
• A mother is a mother and a father is a father (she got that one from my grandfather - not quite sure what it meant)
• A man will treat his wife the same way he treats his mother
• If you eat too fast, you'll get worms
• If you eat too much candy, you'll get worms
• If you eat something that fell on the floor, you'll get worms
• If you eat garlic, you'll get rid of worms!! (remember, we're Italian!)
• Famous people die in threes (when the third one died, she was always relieved that it wasn't her!!)
• Whatever you do on New Year's Eve, you'll do for the whole year (no clue....)
• All I want for my birthday is for you to be good
• This hurts me more than it hurts you (pre-spanking speech)

My daughter has a great one that she uses with her kids, Vika and Eamon . One day we were all making cookies and Eamon was eating too much of the raw dough. She told him to stop or he would have "buena kakats" (probably not the correct spelling but, hey, it's Russian!!). Literally translated it means a unpleasant trip to the bathroom. So she's well on her way to developing her own motherly pearls.