Winners and Losers

Thanks to a great tip from Elemmaciltur down in Munich, I've added a link over on the right to the Mama Jens' Cookbook. That way you don't have to flip around through old blog entries if you want to bake a flippin' cake. Enjoy!

So this morning, we had some family fun and played a game of Blokus (which of course we like to call Block Ass). Its a game where you have little weird shaped puzzle-like, plastic pieces that look like giganitc pixels and you lay them on this grid in a tetris-like way, trying to block your opponents and getting rid of as many pieces as you can. Our five year old is brilliant at it (Bragging Mama) and its good for the mathematic chambers of the mind.

Well, the end of the game brought a couple of important sentiments and subsequent lessons. The first was gloating. Even after I blocked his ass here and blocked his ass there, Big Daddy won by one piece. Well, of course he started dancing all around the kitchen and was sticking out his tongue and shaking his booty. Not wanting to encourage a child who already gloats all over town, I said, "Well, that is nice that Daddy won, but he doesn't need to gloat about it." She already understands this concept and agreed. But then the next sentiment came in: anger and disappointment over losing (from the five year old of course...I was too busy laughing at the booty to feel all that sad). So then we started the discussion of the Good Sport. That is the person who lost, but who can still keep his or her chin up and say, well, I did my best and it is okay that I didn't win this time....I am happy, however, for the person who did win. Well, this is all fine and dandy in theory, but it still sucks to lose. So, while I was trying to bring up the spirits of the five year old, my husband continued his gloating, but in subtext while trying to explain the concept of the Good Sport: "Yeah, sweetie, it is okay that I won and Mama didn't, for example. She can just congratulate me since I won and she lost. She lost, but she still did a great job. And Papa did a great job too and that is why he won." So, after we explained these important concepts, our daughter left the room to move on to a new activity, and Gloating Papa broke out into his booty victory dance again in the kitchen, sticking out his tongue at me. I, of course, being the Good Sport Mama that I am, gave him The Finger.