Siéntense and be silent

I might have posted earlier, but it turns out that slamming your finger in a car door really does hurt a lot.


Like a really lot.


Like rolling-on-the-floor-crying a lot while your husband says, "You've given childbirth, so I believe you that that hurts."


Thanks, dear.  He did offer me booze.


I'd prove how much it hurt, but friends don't post pictures of blackened fingernails.  So just believe me.


I whined about it for several days, like the cowboy I am, which reminded me how my mother used to croon "probrecita" to us when we were pitying ourselves.  It means "poor little one" in Spanish, and although it was always used in a soothing voice, there may have been a touch of sarcasm in there.  A useful phrase to use on my own children.


Dad also had a command of certain conversational Spanish phrases, the most frequently used of which was "Siéntense!," used every day before dinner.  I always knew that word meant "stop poking your siblings and sit down," but it was years before I realized that it was part of an actual language, not just something Dad made up.


Dad having grown up on a midwestern cattle farm and then having four kids, his other favorite sayings included, "Head 'em up and mooooove 'em out!" when we were supposed to get in the car to go somewhere.


So you see, my upbringing was a mix of gringo Spanish and cowhand.


Although they did say some things in regular English, too.  Dad was forever telling us (mostly me) to "suffer in silence."  Mom would say, "You look like somebody's ragamuffin."  (Whose?  I'm your ragamuffin, Mom.)


Mom also had certain sayings she took out when we were causing varying levels of exasperation (Not me, so much, of course.  Mostly my brothers.):


"Take it outside if you're gonna roughhouse!"


"Hey!  Take it outside, guys!"


And last of all, "Go play in the road when the cars are coming."


*Nota bene, that last one was only used on children above the age of reason, who were old enough and sensible enough not to obey it, but also to get the heck out of Mom's hair when she said it.


*Also note that "suffer in silence" meant not "don't come to us with your legitimate problems and concerns," but, "if you're going to wrestle with each other in front of the sofa while I'm watching the evening news, do it quietly."


My poor sister with two daughters!  My parents hardly instilled any vocabulary in us for raising only girls!


Maybe at least sometimes they look like somebody's ragamuffins.