When I realized I was becoming my mother...

As much as you try to avoid it and swear it will never happen?  You will become your mother.  It happens in the blink of an eye and you may not even realize it at first, but it happens.  It's the old-school sayings or actions that sneak up on you.  As the words come out of your mouth, you feel like you should drop everything and call home and yell at mom for influencing you so tremendously!  This post is my favorite mom-isms...things she used or said.  Things I swore I would never have a need for!!!!!

My grandmother (and eventually my mother, though not as often) was famous for things like sniffing salt water out of a giant clam shell every time we went to the beach.  I thought she was nuts.  It's a little embarrassing to be at the beach and have the search for the perfect clam shell so sniff water out of!  What's my favorite home remedy for stuffy noses now?  Yup, a nasal irrigation bottle with saline solution!  While it feels bizarre, it works so well and was the only thing I could use when I was pregnant and so congested.

Favorite household cleaner?  Dawn dish soap and peroxide.  It cleans everything!  I keep a spray bottle of the mixture:

1 part Dawn (original blue)

2 parts peroxide

This stuff has gotten stains out of carpet, clothing, car upholstery, etc.  My biggest success was using it to remove set-in stains from baby clothes.  My oldest had horrible reflux as an infant and, as a result, most of his baby clothes had ugly yellow stains when I pulled them out of the box to wash them for his little brother.  I soaked the area with water, sprayed on the Dawn mixture, let it sit for an hour or so and washed as usual in cold water.  Gone!  When I have a really tricky stain, I will also add a little baking soda to the area and give it a good scrub.  99% of the time, it's gone with one washing.  Things I have removed with this concoction:
-3 year old set-in baby spit-up (formula and breast milk)
-grease stains
-tempera paint
-marker
-ketchup
-mustard
-BBQ sauce
-grass stains

Annoying fruit flies?  Yup, those can be solved with common household items too!  My sister-in-law often picks an entire flat of peaches for us every August.  Fruit flies love peaches.  I hate fruit flies.  

Every August, I break out the cider vinegar and the Dawn soap.  A small bowl of cider vinegar with a drop of soap, stirred together.  Leave it on the counter near your offending critters.  They will flock to it.  And drown themselves in it.  While disgusting, it's rather satisfying as well!  I find that the vinegar seems to lose its potency after a few days, so I set out a fresh batch until all the buggers have disappeared. 

Now, for the sayings...

"There are starving children in this world..."

"Don't make me separate you two!"

"Keep your hands to yourself!"
"Stop touching your brother!"

"There are plenty of children who don't have any toys, so if you continue to treat your things that way, I will send your toys to those children."

There are more and they will pop up out of no where.  Usually it makes me smile, though once in a while, I cringe at just how similar people can be, despite our best efforts!  Environment vs. genetics?  Or maybe a little bit of both!  Be careful what you say, or your kiddos might just end up light you one day!