The table was filled with the sound of babies babbling, questions beginning with repeated refrains of "Mommy" and warnings, when the cheese sticks arrived, not to touch the hot plate and to "sit on your butt, sit."

Mom duty is far from easy -- especially when it involves restaurants and young children.

But for 25 moms who were treated to a free, Mother's Day meal at TGI Friday's, their job has been a little harder. Making their Sunday afternoon out perhaps a little more special.

For the second year, residents of Turning Point, the Salvation Army's shelter for abuse victims, were treated to dinner complete with free transportation to and from the Valley View Mall locale.

Brett Crawley, the restaurant's general manager, said as soon as moms arrived last year, it was decided the Mother's Day meal would be an annual event.

Other Friday's franchises, he said, are considering making similar offers to abused women.

"It's hard not to do it once you've touched so many people," he said. "I got thank you card after thank you card last year."

In the din of the busy restaurant, moms from the shelter could have been mistaken for any other family matriarchs as they crowded into booths and around tables topped with striped tablecloths and giant vases of carnations.

Their stories, however, were different.

Jacque, who, like the other mothers asked that her last name not be used, became a mom later in life. She arrived at the shelter Jan. 4 and hopes to leave for an apartment with 2-year-old son Cristian by June. Already, she has arranged a job, a car and a chance at starting life all over again.

The shelter, she said, is a safe, protective place with a gate, surveillance cameras and people who don't tolerate any nonsense. Even Jacque's co-workers -- short of her managers -- don't know she lives there.

Had the restaurant not made its Mother's Day offer, the shelter is likely where Jacque and the other moms would have spent the day.

"Everybody's been looking forward to it since we heard," she said of the restaurant's dinner invitation. "All we do is work. That's all I do."

For other moms, such as Marianna, the restaurant visit capped a weekend of spending time with her two daughters -- one of whom she had not seen since moving into the shelter April 20.

"Every mother there has been through a lot," she explained. "It's nice to have a treat."

Not that the meal -- like most restaurant visits with kids -- was free of drama. At Jacque's table, where five kids outnumbered three moms, there were protests.

"He's hurting me," one of the girls wailed.

There were tears and youngsters shuffling from booths to booster seats as servers brought chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese for the kids, and steak, chicken and ribs for the adults.

Myriah sat beside her 11-year-old daughter, Justine. Myriah's been at the shelter less than a week, a move she calls the hardest, but best decision of her life.

Yet just a few bites into dinner, there was more drama when Justine spilled her smoothie, coating her mom's shrimp and steak with a layer of pink froth.

A server quickly lifted Myriah's plate away and promised a replacement, making sure that for at least a few hours, each woman in the group was treated like a queen on Mother's Day.