Happy Mother's Day!

I'd always been a big fan of Erma Bombeck's At Wit's End column from the time I was a preteen until she stopping writing her column. I enjoyed her wit and wisdom of being a mom. Today on CBS's Sunday Morning show they paid her tribute. So I too wanted to pay her and all Moms tribute by posting one of her columns or quotes. I didn't find the actual one I was looking for, but I found one she wrote back in 1974 when I was all of 13 years old. This has been passed around in email over the years as has many of her other columns, sometimes they're changed slightly or attributed to another author. The one I wanted to find and share was the help wanted ad, listing all the things us moms do without recognition and then to find at the end of the column it is a mom who is "employee". Please take time to enjoy. Also I want to wish my Mom a Very Happy Mother's Day! I wish I were there to give you a hug and sit and chat. Miss you and Love You! Happy Mother's Day to all my friends who are mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and even if you're not a mom -- if you're important in a child's life you have touched them with mother's love and nurturing!

Here is the column:

When God Created Mothers

by Erma Bombeck

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The following column was her Mother’s Day column for May 12, 1974. It was so good that I just used it as-is. Erma, we miss you!

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When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into his sixth day of “overtime” when an angel appeared and said, “You’re doing a lot of fiddling around on this one.”

And the Lord said, “Have you read the specs on this order?

• She has to be completely washable, but not plastic;
• Have 180 movable parts... all replaceable;
• Run on black coffee and leftovers;
• Have a lap that disappears when she stands up;
• A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair;
• And six pairs of hands.”

The angel shook her head slowly and said, “Six pairs of hands... no way.”

“It’s not the hands that are causing me problems,” said the Lord. “It’s the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have.”

“That’s on the standard model?” asked the angel.

The Lord nodded. “One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, ’What are you kids doing in there?’ when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn’t but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say, ’I understand and I love you’ without so much as uttering a word.”

“Lord,” said the angel, touching His sleeve gently, “Go to bed. Tomorrow...”

“I can’t,” said the Lord, “I’m so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick... can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger... and can get a nine-year-old to stand under a shower.”

The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. “It’s too soft,” she sighed.

“But she’s tough!” said the Lord excitedly. “You cannot imagine what this mother can do or endure.”

“Can it think?”

“Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise,” said the Creator.

Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek. “There’s a leak,” she pronounced. “I told You You were trying to push too much into this model.”

“It’s not a leak,” said the Lord. “It’s a tear.”

“What’s it for?”

“It’s for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness, and pride.”

“You are a genius,” said the angel.

The Lord looked somber. “I didn’t put it there,” He said.