It was a summer day like any other. It began with the usual in-fighting, this time over whose turn it was to scoop the outside poop.

My older son was brow-beating the younger one into doing his day of scooping.

I interjected: “It’s not his day. He scooped yesterday.”

My older son and daughter both chanted in unison: “You ALWAYS are on his side. ALWAYS. He is the FAVORITE!”

This is, ironically, the only time those two agree on anything, and it is always at the expense of the youngest prey.

“Oh, please,” I dismissed them. “You all think each other is my favorite. Every day, apparently, I shine the light brighter on one of you than the other. You all point the finger at each other and toss accusations of favoritism and nepotism around like you were talking about the school board and not your own family. It’s ridiculous.”

My daughter demanded: “Oh, really, Maria? Then how do you explain THIS?”

She had opened up two packets of photos I’d recently developed.

She laid them on the table like she was dealing blackjack. Instead of kings, queens and jacks, however, she displayed the following: Madeline at graduation, Nicholas wrestling, Patrick on his bike, Patrick on the phone, Patrick watching TV, Patrick thinking, Patrick and the dogs, Patrick eating a cookie, Patrick waving, Patrick sleeping.

Well, this was embarrassing.

Maybe it’s just because he loves attention, like his mother! He sees a camera and … spotlight on him! We both tend to be a little … um … self-absorbed?

“Kids … I keep telling you, I do not have favorites … unless your name is Kahlua or Chianti. Then, it just can’t be helped.”

“Well, you always told me your mother favored YOU when you were little,” my daughter sniffed.

I replied flippantly, “Of course she favored me, I was sickly! I never gave her any lip because I spent all of 6th grade in an oxygen tent sucking on my nebulizer. Everyone called me Asthmatic Annie … and that was just my immediate family.

“I had the hue of Elmer’s Glue – who wouldn’t give me special attention?

“And, as a by-product of never seeing the light of day, I never had the opportunity to be bold.”

In my faded, gauzy memoires, I remember myself on my near-death-bed gasping for air and begging my mother for more Ludens.

My sisters and brother, on the other hand, were tormenting my harried mother with antics ranging from sneaking a cigar in the attic crawl space to making my sister stick her finger in a light socket or forcing me to eat a piece of chalk.

They were evil and I was a (wheezing) cherub!

It wasn’t really much of a challenge to ensure my place as favored child in the Jiunta clan, believe me.

Now, you know we don’t love one more than the other, right mothers?

That would be wrong.

I’ll admit, I do favor one dog over the other which feels bad enough, but never a child.

However, they all offer something different to the chromosomal mix, and if pressed, I would have to admit I relate to diverse personality traits of each on different levels. My youngest son, sadly, shares my sarcastic and caustic sense of “humor”.

And he has what I call a “flexi-face” and contorts his expression into that of a melted candle and it’s just funny stuff.

He is the loud mini-me and will be duly punished for that little genetic award well into his senior year of high school.

My older son is the middle child and he shares my laid-back and easy-going nature. I am so easy-going! I AM!

And we both detest intolerance of any type. Show me a Geico commercial and I’ll rail against the bigotry towards those poor cavemen or shake my fist at the injustice of Gilligan never getting off that freaking island. We bond over the unfairness in life.

And my daughter?

Well, she’s a girl, like me. So how can I help but favor her in the mall or over a damn tasty salad at Panera?

We both love the same things in so many departments except for those involving curfew, gas money, tight shirts, short shorts, tattoos and piercings of any body part other than a lobe.

There are always things to which we disagree and when that occurs, I just play the Dr. Phil DVD repeatedly until both our heads explode.

My connection with her is a crap shoot and depends largely on a full moon and the barometric pressure.

Do I share more with her? Maybe … insofar as the fact that we can always dish about hormones, ovulation and waxing.

What our kids don’t know is that we mothers take a vow when their heads crown and sign a contract in the sky promising to love every child equally and without reservations, ever.

We love the first one as much as the last one … no more, no less. Just right.

Mothers are savvy that way.

Because the time for them to fight over who is going to scoop my own poop will be here before Gilligan gets off that island – and I need to be ready with my undivided and equal love for one and all.

Oxygen tent optional.

About the Author

Maria Heck covers for the Times Leader. Reach her at or .

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Back when I was there

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