Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Playing Favorites.

I was blessed to have a mother who was willing to have a large family and didn't play favorites. (My father didn't either, but this is about Mom today.) There were nine children in our family, one boy and eight girls. After the first bunch of four, there was a gap of about 5 years. Then along came another girl, and after that another 5 year gap. Then came the last four of us. She could have easily decided that four children was plenty, or five, or even six. That's quite a respectable size for a family, and wasn't that young anymore. But God sent more children, me (lucky number 7), and my two younger sisters. Believe me, we are very thankful Mom gave birth to nine children!

As far as the favorite child thing, all of know she has a favorite son. He's the only one, poor guy. To tell the truth, she has a favorite daughter-in-law, too. The rest of us know that Mom does not have a favorite daughter. At least, if she did have a favorite she would never tell anyone. But somehow, each of are certain that deep down inside, WE are secretly her favorite. One of my sisters will always call and say, "This is your favorite daughter." Mom will then jokingly call her by someone else's name (different every time). I think all of her son-in-laws and grandchildren have the same impression. Mom would never, ever say she had a favorite. But she treats us all as if we are.

This led to a fun family tradition started by some of my nieces when they were in their 20s and living near each other for school and work. They would introduce each other to friends as, "My favorite cousin, Wendy," or "My fsvorite cousin, Heidi." The idea is that we treat everyone family member as if they are the favorite. Unfortunately, our family has grown so much that a couple of names have been used more than once, so we can't say, "This is my favorite ________" all the time. But we can still treat each other with equal love and respect in abundance.

And I can honestly say Mom is my favorite.