For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for May 14, 2023

Possibly the best way to celebrate.

Elly is good about keeping old stuff, but I would not put birth certificates in a beaten, down cardboard box. We got a fireproof lock box for things like that.

Looks like “Aypo’s” hair has grown back.

BTW, Mike and Liz are old enough to have a little wine with their parents—as long as it’s not in public.

Happy Mother’s Day to all Moms

It’s a good thing that cardboard box wasn’t down in the basement.

Birth certificates in a box? And not a fire-proof safe?

So like our Mom. When they sold the house we grew up in and moved to a smaller retirement house she invited each of us to come pick up our stuff she had saved. I envisioned old baseball cards, marbles, and other treasures. What she had for each of us was a container of baby stuff, grade cards, drawings, newspaper clippings, etc. Her treasures.

Not without wine you’re not…

Mothers’ Day! Let’s get drunk!

This is a sweet comic, Lynn. Thank you.

My mom told me about meeting her mother in law for the first time; a small box came out to show her…with my dad’s original umbilical cord!!!!! My mom did keep our first baby teeth that fell out and my sister joked about making them into a necklace and in the very far future archeologists thinking we were cannibals…Happy Mother’s Day everybody!

Yep… Mother’s make the best memories. Happy Mother’s Day.

I get so tired of the criticism of this strip. It is a cartoon! The birth certificates can go anywhere and nothing will happen to them. In real life, they are easy to replace. No locked safe is needed. Folks, just let up a little bit and enjoy the sentiments being shown. Elly is a good, loving mom, the family is normal and healthy. Let up!

Sounds like an episode of the TV show Valerie which starred Valerie Harper and Jason Bateman. Valerie Harper played the mom, who got killed off in a car crash in a later season. It was not talked about until an electrical fire destroyed their house. The eldest son looks in the smoldering attic to see destroyed trophies and other mementos. He sees a picture of in ashes and realizes that was a photograph of his mother. He breaks down, realizing that he has nothing to remember her by.

Need to keep a birth certificate hidden. If my birth certificate got out; I would have been disqualified from being President. :)

When we were older and had our own families, my mom sent us each an envelope with many momentos such as mothers day cards and other things we made or gave her. Such a lovely gift. She just died last month at the age of 92; part of her legacy is how much we all love each other.

Lynn Johnston’s real life family had rifted, unlike the Pattersons.

I have my maternal grandparents’ birth certificates from Ireland, along with my father’s birth certificate. I have a ton of picture albums that I’m going to have to haul out and look at someday.

Happy Mother’s Day!

All our baby stuff probably got tossed by my uncle when mom passed

I have been slowly giving those sorts of items to my adult child. She enjoys each one, we talk about them, she can decide if she wants to keep them or not and I get some free space that she won’t have to sort out someday. It’s working for us.

Mom passed away a few years back at the age of 103. we discovered not only our baby books, immunization records and her birth certificate, but also she had kept ALL our baby teeth, locks of hair from first hair cuts, many little treasures and memorabilia of even such things as health issues. (Stitches?! Really, mom.)

Does Elly have record of Michael’s circumcision? How about Elizabeth or April’s circumcision?

Happy Mother’s Day!!

Now that’s a fun Mother’s Day

All the Pattersons are toothless.

April and Elly in the first and ninth panels.

Elizabeth in the third and sixth panels.

Michael in the third and fifth panels.

And John in the eighth panel.

Keeping Elizabeth’s report cards from elementary school. Most parents use their kids’ report cards for lining birdcages.

Aypo musta been eatin’ a blue lolly.