It's my turn to sit by Mom

I don't know about other families, but in ours, EVERYONE wants to sit by me. For years this battle has been raging between my daughters when we go out to eat, or sitting at church or riding a ride at the carnival, wherever the 5 of us are going to sit together. It's kinda like calling "shotgun" for the front seat of the car like my brothers and I did growing up, except my girls call the right to sit by me.

When my two big girls were little and there was no #3, they would often fight over whose turn it was to sit by me. However, it was so much easier back then to keep it straight. If I sat by #1 on Sunday then by all means, I sat by #2 the next Sunday and so on. WAY easier to keep things fair and square!

Then ol' #3 came along and the real battles ensued. By default, she got dibs to Mom for quite a few years but after she turned 3 years old, the gloves came off and it was each girl for themselves. I didn't realize how hard it'd be to keep it fair with three girls versus two. Plus, I can barely keep straight who needs to go where and when without constant iPhone reminders, so how in tarnation am I ever supposed to remember whose darn turn it is to sit by me.

The fight starts as soon as we approach a table or pew or ride. Apparently they've never been schooled in the old "shotgun" rules where you're supposed to call it WAY ahead of time, long before anyone else remembers. No, they wait till we're three steps away from the seat and they start calling, "My turn to sit by Mom!" all at the same time, which quite often can result in a WWF smackdown by the time we actually sit down. In the end, the 7- year-old is bawling, the 11-year-old is glaring at her, the 14-year-old is rolling her eyes, and Hubby and I are sneering at all of the them. What love!

Once in a while, one of the older girls will realize that these selfish bouts of chaos may possibly be breaking the heart of their dear old Dad, who's standing alone in the rear watching these maniacs fight over me, so they give in and say, "Fine. I'll sit by Dad." Which I think is supposed to make him feel "wanted" but I'm guessing makes him feel more like the mutt at the pound that someone just settles for cause they feel bad for it. Poor Dad!

Anyway, on spring break last week, they even fought over whose turn it was to ride the ski lift with me. That was a new one. We did a pretty good job of calculating who rode with me when and how long the ride was, keeping it all Even Steven, until we went to dinner in the evenings and then the arguments returned. One evening, as I sat there in the restaurant after one of their brawls, studying their pouty and irritated faces, I wondered, will there be a day when we can all just sit down wherever, beside whomever and just be happy to be there? Happy we're not at home eating bologna sandwiches?

Then it hit me. Bet your boots that day will come. In fact, it's probably right around the corner. As soon as they grow up and get boyfriends and husbands, I'll be kicked to the curb. In fact, they'll probably wish I was sitting in a whole other restaurant miles away from them. Then, when they have kids, they'll ditch me again. They'll have their kids sit by me and they'll find a chair as far away from me as they can. Then, when I get old and gray and grouchy, the fight will reverse. All three of my girls will be fighting over who HAS to sit by me and who had to sit by me last time and they'll be keeping track of who did what and when for me. They'll probably be happy to sit by Dad at that point and no one will want to sit by Mom. Think I better relish this attention while I got it.