This is your challenge: come up with the mom one-liner.

In just one sentence, tell us about your mom, someone else’s mom or motherhood. Our favourite one-liner will win Elizabeth Hay’s new novel, ‘Alone in the classroom’ and a $50 gift card to The Grand Pizzeria.

Submit your one-liner to mom@ottawacitizen.com, we’ll announce our winner on Monday morning and print a collection in Sunday’s paper.

Reader comments:

Nothing will challenge you, exhaust you, humble you like motherhood - and that's just the labour part!

Candice/Candy

My mom is: eternal patience, wisdom, love and acceptance.

Addison Steeves

The mirror we move from.

Sharon

When I was 20, my mother lost her battle with cancer and after her passing my brother, sister and I were given a letter that my mom had written right around the time she was diagnosed 5 months before her passing. In this letter she wrote little stories and notes to us three children and her own mother. In it she said something that stuck out to me 5 years later. She simply said that "If my kids are screwed up, it's not because I didn't love them enough." We went through a lot as a family over the years, but at the very end Mom was the pillar of strength and dignity. She died with that same fierceness intact. I am truly lucky to have had such a great mother for 20 years.

Tori W.

I'm the mom. That's why.

Cheryl H

Rest in Peace Mom. A Mother of 10 children, taken too soon, September 19, 2011.

A verse from a song:

When I'm lost

When I'm missing you like crazy

I tell myself I'm so blessed

To have had you in my life, my life.

"I'll see you again".

Mom loved yellow roses, so I had one tattooed, with part of this song. I don't believe in saying Good-Bye, so, 'I'll See You Again, is much better.

Gary

This is what I really think being a Mom is:

Life's ultimate achievement is being a Mom; life's ultimate reward... being a Grandmother!

And my favorite saying as a Mom when my kids this something I did not approve of: "I love you but I don't like your attitude!"

Lise

How do you spell sleep deprivation? Two kids under the age of 3 :-)

Heather Rose

"Oh look, my son has flown from the cocoon's nest"

"Stop treating me like a kid mom." Sorry son, you will always be my baby"

Jocelyne T.

If it's not one thing, it's your mother.

Helen Berry

Mom won a camera in a foot race when she was 12, and I haven't been able to keep pace with her energy or argue successfully with her photographic memory since then.

Myrna Rootham

When my first son was born, he was colicky and I - young and inexperienced - was frantic. On the phone with my mother one day, I wailed that I was following the experts' advice from all the baby books I could get my hands on, but to no avail. With great calm and wisdom, she said to me:

"Judy, you've got to remember - he didn't read those books!"

Her words really helped me pay attention to my baby, not to the books, and trust my instincts more. My mother passed away eight years ago, and I miss her every day.

Judy Beltzner

Motherhood, The Top Job!

Barbara

My Mom's mom, my Granny, coined a phrase that has made all my female friends laugh and at the same time say "that is so true!"

The line was "there is a lid for every pot" ... so never get discouraged, there is someone out there for you.

Casey Quinton

My mother, when she wanted some peace and quiet from 6 kids ...

"Get outside and blow the stink off you"....

K.S.

"I'm not mad I'm disappointed."

Mell B.

When we were crying for no good reason my mom used to say: "You want something to cry about, I'll give you a reason to cry."

That usually did the trick.

Debby S.

In keeping two steps ahead of my teens I told my sisters “Unbeknownst to them, I was a teen myself at one time.”

Janice Trudeau

I had to send this one in, in memory of my Mom: "Because I said so."

Nancy Livingstone

When I think of my loving, intelligent, patient, generous, and beautiful war veteran mother, I think of the following words of wisdom from the Bible:

“Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come”.

Anne MacGillivray

If all of your friends are allowed to do it and you're not then why don't you go live at their house?????

Joan K. McDougall

My Inspiration.

Martine Nadeau

My mom would say “look further than your nose when you’re looking for things and if you can’t find it then ask me and if I find it whatch out”. And now that I am a mom “you work all day and then come home to a 2nd full time job”.

Sylvie Petch

My all time favourite Mom one liner has to be..

"You can date when you're married."

Anon

“I told you”

That’s it…very simple….

Maria M.

My mum (RIP) had some doozies

"Unless your butt is tied to a piano, or you have suddenly come down with polio - get it yourself"

"You want to pray that you can run faster scared than I can angry"

"If you break curfew one more time, missie - I swear to GOD, life as you know it will cease to exist"

"You do that one more time, I will gladly sacrifice any hope of grandchildren"

"I may not be able to catch you, but, you have to come home eventually, and I will be waiting………in the dark, somewhere"

"If you think for one minute that you pulled one over on me, honey, guess again, I wrote the book, and I will be taking you back to school"

"The next time I have a great idea like "let's have children, they will enrich our lives" Please, for the love of all that is good and holy in this world, rip my tongue out"

Kelly-Ann Speers

"Being a mom is like a comedy show with no script."

One of my favourite memories:

My son has a habit of taking off his socks when he comes home and stuffing them down the side of the couch. This is of course an irritant when it comes time for laundry as I inevitably realize this too late and thus don't end up cleaning his socks.

One summer, as we were preparing for him to go away to camp, I remembered to ask him to pull the socks out of the couch to include in the laundry. The next day, I drove him to camp and that same evening, I sat down on the couch and reached down the side. Rather than finding the remote, I pulled out one sock, then two, … then twelve … Turns out he had took any sock he could find and stuffed it in the couch so I wouldn't "miss him" (lol, how thoughtful!)

Vania K.

My Mother was (and still is) a smart cookie and nobody's fool. A couple of her lines, especially to us 5 kids when we were teenagers were:

You can't con a con.

I wish that you have five kids just like you!

Your father and I were going to get a divorce but we stayed together for the kids - nobody wanted custody!

Carol-Anne Hoard

Learn to cook well,

I do not want you slamming my grave that you do not know how to cook.

From my mom

Roderick Macte

Use your eyes not your mouth when your looking for your stuff!!

From my mom

Roderick Macte

I have two one-liners to describe my mother.

Unconditional love, unending sacrifice, never failing support; not to be understood or appreciated until I became a mother myself.

She loves me more than life itself and taught me to love my our own children in the same way.

What a great idea, wonderful to take the time to reflect.

Thanks,

Sarah Connor Gorber

Having kids is like buying a car; they start out exciting, drain your bank account with upkeep, but once you have one, life prior seems not as good.

Chris Murray. No, this is no greeting card.