Sportmanship

Nn and Sw are wired so differently.


Sw is so non-chalant.  Nn is ultra-competitive.  To a point where her 1st grade teacher wrote something along the lines of "She's exceptional in every aspect. I would like to see her improve in sportsmanship." 

All her life... Nn has been an overachiever.  So she hates not being the best at something.  Probably gets that from the mom's side of the family.

Case in point... this past Sunday was Geoff's Birthday Bowl-a-Rama.  Every year for the past 10+ years he'll have a bowling party on his birthday!!  This year... both kids are old enough to go bowl... albeit.... using a ramp that's set up for them to push a ball down the lane. 

SW was so happy go-lucky, he just wanted to push the ball and see it roll.  But as luck would have it... that's the type of personality that's awarded with great results.  He not only got a Spare... he rolled a Strike.  Part of it was... because his favorite color is Yellow... and the Yellow ball weighed 13 pounds.

Nn on the other hand... loves Pink.  So she picks the 6 pound ball.  And for some reason... her ball kept going into the gutter or she'll get 1-2 pins.  At one point... she was almost in tears cuz all of my friends was cheering for SW for rolling a STRIKE.  And she was not "good enough."

I tried to keep her tears from rolling by taking all the blame.  "It's Bah-bee's fault!! I'm not setting up the ramp correctly."  or "It's Bah-bee's fault... I held it too hard for you."   But no matter what I said... and what I did... she kept going back to the pink, 6 lb ball.  And she never got more than 8 pins. 

In some way... this is good.  We need her to go through the experience of losing.  Cuz in life, you'll likely lose more than you'll win.  But man....when you see tears coming out of your baby's eyes.... you want to do everything and anything to make things better.