February is the month of my mom’s birthday, so it makes me think of her. Many of you knew my mom. I guess when a couple has 12 kids, they cast a wide net, so it’s hard to completely avoid knowing people. Some of you didn’t know my mom because you came into my life after she had passed. Some of you only had a passing knowledge of her. Humor me and allow me to revisit. My mom was funny. She loved to laugh, so she made people laugh, usually at her own expense. Here are a few of her funny habits.

PICTURES: My mom loved to take pictures. This habit was picked up later in her life because there are certainly few, if any, baby pictures of me. By the time she got to the 11th, she just picked an older kid that I looked like and told me that was my baby picture. I went through most of my life believing a picture of my older sister Debbie was in fact a baby picture of me. In truth, I am just a baby dot in the large family pictures. So Mom tried to rectify that later by taking pictures of EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. And she liked bang for her buck (she did have 12 kids). If a random person was standing close, she would shoo them into her picture. I am sure that there are a fair number of you out there that were told to get into a picture. The more in the picture, the better!! It does leave us scrambling sometimes to figure out who, exactly, is in any given old picture.

Another picture story is from Larry and Laura’s wedding or baby shower (can’t remember which it was). Mom was snapping pictures left and right, happily posing everyone and then telling them to look natural. When Mom passed the number of pictures that the film would take, she thought she was getting bonus pictures. She started to get suspicious when she passed 50 pictures on film for 25. At around 100 pictures she reluctantly opened the camera to investigate, only to discover that there was no film in the camera. Perhaps those 100 missing pictures can join up with my baby pictures to make an imaginary photo album. All is possible on the cloud. Oh, and after the discovery, she did put film in that camera and ran around insisting everyone re-pose and look natural again.

TALKING: Mom loved to talk. So I come by it honestly. But my mom never just talked. She used her whole body! She would wildly wave her arms and even jump around to make a point in a story (just like Teresa). You couldn’t help but get involved in her stories and laugh along with her, she was so engaging. I loved when she got going because I knew I would get a good abdominal work-out in laughing with her.

DAY TRIPS: My mom could plan fantastical trips. We went to Bozo with the neighbors. We went to the zoo. We went to museums. We went to Cantigny. And we never spent more than the bare minimum. We brought our own food and ate in the parking lot if they didn’t allow food in. And Mom never, NEVER changed her plans once they were made. That’s how we ended up stuck at the Tivoli movie theater in a blizzard. Some nice man gave us chains for our van. He told us to keep them. And maybe keep them in the van if we intended to continue going places with a gaggle of kids in a snow storm.

MILK: We drank a LOT of milk. Some of you may remember the milk shelf in the fridge. That shelf held 9 gallons of milk. Since we never had any leftovers to take up fridge space, because Mom always made the “perfect amount”, there was plenty of room for milk. Since I was a younger kid, I didn’t have to buy the 9 gallons of milk, but my older siblings did. Debbie told me that she was sent to the liquor store to buy milk shortly after getting her license, because that was where the cheapest milk was in town. After Debbie got the 9 gallons of milk loaded up on the counter, they asked for her ID. Apparently, even milk is off limits to the underage at the liquor store, so Debbie had to put it all back. Mom was really mad when she came home empty handed. Tom actually liked to get milk. It gave him the extra attention he so craved, since he was constantly disappointed that he wasn’t an only child. I’m sure it helped that most of that attention came from cute girls. My dad said people referred to him as the milk man when he got milk. Um, I guess we are the milk man’s kids. Although, usually the milk man isn’t footing all the bills, so Dad, I think you drew the short milk straw on that one.

My mom found out she had leukemia at the end of my freshman year in college. Phil and I were still at home, because I commuted to college. One of her treatments involved prednisone. Throughout my childhood, I don’t remember her EVER taking medication. So, the meds hit her especially hard. And when she was on prednisone (a steroid), she was Wonder Woman. She would hardly sleep. She would vacuum at three in the morning. She would make fantastical meals, as if she were still feeding 14 people and not just 4. I remember asking Mom if she couldn’t just dust at 3am. She said, “Nope! I just need to really move around.” But of course she did. That was her way.

I will continue with other stories through the month of February because there are too many. Stay tuned for other hot Mom topics like: Vacations, Catch Phrases and Swears, Other Mom-isms. So Mom, here’s to you. I promise to have one loud belly laugh today in your honor. As time goes by, the pain of your loss is less and it’s easier to remember your many gifts to us. I actually have a vivid memory of when I was around 5. It was late summer and you were standing at the kitchen sink. You had on a red sleeveless button down blouse. I remember thinking that I had a blouse like that, so I went back to my room and put it on. I came up to you and said, “Mom, now I’m just like you!” And you said, “You really are.” Our similarities bring me joy every day. What a blessing to be like you.