The Favorite Seat

We have a favorite seat.  Or, rather, my children do.   It’s strange how, “the favorite seat” evolved because it wasn’t a favorite to start.   Initially, my children would come downstairs and select a seat to eat breakfast at.   Over time, my son gravitated to the left seat and my daughter seemed to prefer the right seat.   Neither child seemed to care which seat they sat in because they were too busy being upset about the color of their cup or the fruit being cut versus whole or any number of other things that make no sense to adults but are completely wail-worthy to the child.

Rather recently my children both seemed to think the right seat was the better choice.   The mere fact that a preference was expressed by one child, even in an offhanded manner, meant the other child immediately believed even more strongly that the seat was clearly the choice of winners.   To suffer the pain of having to eat breakfast in the same chair, only two feet to the left, simply would not do.

Arguments, battles and insults began to ensue.   My husband and I thought we could take advantage of the situation given the issues we’d been having with getting dressed in the morning (not us, them). We told them whoever comes downstairs dressed first would be able to have The Favorite Seat.    But this backfired.   They would come downstairs not dressed, squat on the chair, request for it to be saved so they could run upstairs to get dressed.    As an aside here, they don’t get served breakfast until they’re dressed.   This has been the weekday case for a very long time now.   Complaints were given that the other child was going to get down and take the seat or that they were going to wait to eat until the first child was done eating in the chair.   That is the short list of what we heard over the past few weeks.

So we made a change.   I got annoyed on Monday and wrote a schedule on a post-it note.   I stuck the note right between the two seats and showed them how they each got two days of the week, alternating back and forth.    At the time, they didn’t ask about the fifth day; it was only later that we explained it would be reserved for the child who was the kindest and most gracious throughout the week.

And this solved the problem.   Completely.   Yesterday my son said to his sister, “let’s go look at the calendar and see who’s day it is.”   They figured it out and the one who’s day it wasn’t was happy their day was coming up next.    Children are amazing and confusing little creatures.  

The Big Boy Update:  Tae Kwon Do may have rubbed off on my son.   We were doing something the other day involving pretend swords.   When I said I had to get back to my work he said, “thank you for fighting me.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter can see some things well, while other things are completely obscured by her vision.   We were at a restaurant for lunch and she needed to go to the bathroom.   She was able to tell the lines separating the floor tiles.   She further was able to tell me we could only step on the blue tiles.   The picture below is of the bathroom floor.   There are grey tiles and bluish-grey tiles.   She could tell which ones were the bluer ones up to five tiles away.    We’ve noticed she can tell some things more easily if they’re below her.