Mother's Day is upon us. It's time again to celebrate and say thanks to those long-suffering, loving women who labored to bring us into this world and then taught us how to live in it.

On Sunday, May 12 churches will be full, restaurants will do more business than any other day in the year, and florists will thrive. For one day, mothers will be treated as royalty. Mailboxes will be filled with cards. Sprint and 10-10-220 will make big bucks. Washing machines and vacuum cleaners will be silent as Mom takes a day of ease.

But look out for Monday morning! All those meals lovingly prepared by the hands of children (or their fathers) will have left spills, stains, mountains of dirty utensils and hours of drudgery for dear old Mom to handle. There will be a two day backlog of laundry and cleaning. Her day of leisure will have its big payoffa Monday from hell.

But it will be worth the work. Mothers will treasure the memories of their darlings bringing them breakfast in bed. Who could forget M & M pancakes, coffee that could be sliced with a knife, eggs over easy (and over the edge of the breakfast tray), and charcoaled toast? It's a meal fit for a queen.

All you young mothers and those planning motherhood have so much ahead of you. The sense of joy you feel as your child strives toward independence is worth all your worried hours of pacing the floor, their tears and fits of temper, their upset stomachs, banged up noses and knuckles, hurt feelingsand all this after they become adults. I won't even begin to tell you about the young years. I can only promise you that you can survive it all.

On television we see the ads for Mother's Day gifts. Television moms get diamonds, appliances, lingerie and fabulous nights at the theater. A real mom gets handprints in a paper plate of plaster, seedling in a Dixie cup, tickets to a Braves game, or a new riding mower so that yard work won't be so hard on her. She might deserve a new luxury automobile with leather seats, but she'll get a coupon book from the local carwash so she won't have to wash the truck herself.

Nothing is too good for Mom.

She might enjoy an afternoon outing on Mother's Day. She'll be delighted to go to the zoo or to Chuck E. Cheese. Good ole' Mom is always up for fun like that. A Disney or, even better, a Kung Fu movie would really please her. She wouldn't care to see Clint Eastwood or Susan Sarandon. Mom really knows how to have fun. If the weather is hot enough on May 12, she probably would like to go to Water World. That's the best. She really likes to watch the kids slide down a 4,000 foot slide into 35 feet of germ infested water.

And, of course, there's always the trip to see the Grandmas. Mom really needs to see her mother-in-law to make sure she knows all the mistakes she makes as a mother, and especially how bad she is at being a wife. While she's there, she also can

get the latest news about that girl Grandma had picked out for Daddy to marry. It will be a great day.

Then when she gets to her mother's house, she can explain why she stayed at the other Grandma's house so long. Mom says her mother is such a martyr (whatever that is). It probably has something to do with the way her mother sniffles into her lace edged handkerchief.

And at the end of the day when all the fun is over, Mom will take her precious children home to be fed and settled into bed. She'll read "Green Eggs and Ham" for the 5,000th time and promise not to turn off the hall light all night. Then she'll go to the kitchen to make peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off for tomorrow's lunches. She'll put the cat out and trudge to the bathroom for a long-awaited soak in the tub. Exhausted, she'll drag herself toward bed already feeling her head sink into her pillow. And Daddy will be there waiting to remind her why she's a Mom.

Happy Mother's Day.