Mother’s Day: How to Pick Your Favorite Child

Soon it will be Mother’s Day, that glorious day when my family works together to show me just how much they love me and how grateful they are for my innumerable, selfless acts of motherly kindness and devotion!

How to pick a favorite child on Mother's Day!

This is basically how Mother’s Day will go down at my house (or at lest in my imagination). First my husband will treat me to a simple, yet tasty, breakfast of chocolate-filled croissants, mimosas, and a $500 Target gift card. After that my children will shower me with gifts and hail me with words of praise and adoration. Then everyone will let me go back to sleep for about four hours.

Later whilst I lie in the sun drinking Arnold Palmers and flipping through the latest issue of Southern Living, my family will clean the house, plant new flower beds, wash all the dogs, and prepare an evening meal of tacos and cheesecake.

[Read Next: Mother’s Day Gifts: Here are 14 We Would LOVE to Receive]

After a lovely meal, followed by a few more gifts and short litany of my many marvelous attributes, my children will gather around me for the one Mother’s Day tradition I know I can actually count on…Mommy Trivia!

This year, just like every year, I will pit my precious blessings one against the other in a high-stakes competition to determine who will win the title of Mommy’s Favorite.

The title alone is a great honor, but there are also prizes. The winner gets to appear with me in my Facebook profile photo, to be featured for at least a week. There’s also a medal (a re-purposed t-ball memento) and a trophy (that might or might not have previously served as a Best in Show trophy from a dairy goat competition).

Admittedly as the years go by, it becomes increasingly difficult to come up with new questions, but I know how important this competition is to my children, so I persevere. With Mother’s Day less than a week away, I have my work cut out for me. I’ll start by reviewing some questions from previous contests…

How did I meet Daddy?
What was my college major?
Name one book I’ve read in the last six months.
Name one of my all-time favorite songs.
What is my favorite card game?
Who am I named after?
What were my paternal grandparents’ first names?
What was the name of my college sorority?
Name three of my best friends from high school.
If I could eat only one dessert for the rest of my life, what would it be?
What color were my bridesmaids’ dresses?
Name a job I had in high school or college.
If I could have any kind of dog, what would it be?
What is my favorite scent?
Who is my favorite female country singer?
Who is my favorite band?
Name one of my grammatical pet peeves.
Who is my favorite author?

These are just a few of the questions I’ve used over the years to determine which of my children is really paying attention when I talk and therefore deserves the title of Mommy’s Favorite.

But the truth is actually much more complicated. I love them each uniquely and completely, and I love them all the same. In fact, I have always shared with my children this great and mysterious truth, “You are all my favorite – just not all at the same time.”

On Mother’s Day, it will be the one who has been listening. May the best child win!

Related:

What Tipped the Scales For this Mom in the Balance of Motherhood

What if My Daughters “Just” Want to be Homemakers?

How Dear Daughter: 7 Ways to Repay Me Before You Leave for College 

About Laura Hanby Hudgens

Laura Hanby Hudgens is a part-time high school teacher and a freelance writer living with her husband and children in the Arkansas Ozarks. Her work has appeared in The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Grown and Flown, Parent.co and elsewhere. You can learn more about her at Charming Farming, where she occasionally blogs about faith, food, education, and family life.

Read more posts by Laura

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