Hard Work

Join any sports club in America & you'll earn a trophy. Just for showing up. If your parents are divorced, you can even get two trophies - one for each house. Somehow, merit never enters the equation. Everyone is a winner.

Well, this week our household experienced true victory. Our oldest pea participated in the Battle of the Books with her team of 4. They have been giving up their lunch period twice a week since February to meet with a dedicated teacher (God bless her!) to practice. Each girl read all the assigned books and took notes. A week before the citywide competition, the team went to a district practice battle - and finished second from last. They had good spirits and carried on practicing right up to the citywide competition - where they finished second out of 144 teams! A trophy earned has a feeling - it feels like hard work and effort earns a victory. A trophy given feels like a garage sale.

Friday, the peas were off school, so we held the littlest pea's birthday party at Build-a-Bear. We set a $25 budget for each girl. Our girls know better than to beg for things. I'm not a stuff person. I don't indulge every want. It's the values we want to instill in our children. That whole hard work ethic thing. Not all party participants are being raised the same way. SP became very concerned some girls wanted more. How lovely to tell him the party leader was in charge of helping the girls find things they wanted within the budget because that was hard work!