Royal Pains in my Seat

by Cathy

One night last week, Bella prepared her evening snack as usual and sat down at the kitchen table to eat it. This time, however, she sat in Ari's chair. We have designated chairs at our kitchen table for dinner and ever since the girls were old enough to sit in a chair with their booster seats, they each sat in their assigned chair of choice.

On this night, as Bella was happily chomping on her Cheerios and me on my Honeycomb (what can I say? It brings back my childhood memories) Ari strolled into the kitchen to get some water. And so it began.

"Bella! Why are you sitting in my seat?!"
"Because mommy is sitting in mine," she pointed over at me, my left cheek stuffed with those huge Honeycomb wheels.
"Bella!! I don't want you to sit in my seat!"
Silence.
"Mommy! Bella is sitting in my seat!"
"Honey, it's okay. She's just having her snack. She'll be almost done."
"But I want to sit there?"
"Now? But you're not eating."
"I still want to sit there."
"Honey, just let her finish and she'll get up, okay?"
"NOOOOOOO!"

On this went until I moved out of Bella's seat so she can sit there and free up Ari's seat. But Bella didn't budge.
"She has to learn that she can't always get what she wants."

Hmph. Here was the student teaching the master. She had a good point. So we both ignored her until she stomped off and came back with this note, which she prodded into our personal face space and proceeded to then tape to her chair after Bella got up:

She wrote this same thing three different times, spelling it three different ways. And if you'll notice, she taped up ALL THREE versions on each side of her chair. She clearly marked her territory and claimed her stake at the kitchen table, that's for dang sure.

So that evening, Bella decided to do the same, but she one-upped her by simply just putting her nickname, Queen Isabella, on her chair, in the fanciest font she could find:

And Ari, in true Leo fashion and never wanting to be outdone, had her papi help her create the following to add to her chair, but first, not without changing her mind and allowing someone to sit in her chair for an allotted period of time:

The 30 minute restriction overpowers the throne name

So all these little scraps of paper are still taped to these two chairs in our kitchen, lest anyone forgets which chair they're about to plop their own seat on.

See? Some ground rules are always needed...even when you think you'll never need them.