I mean 3 kids always seems to bring on the "oh wow!" and you never know if it's a "WOW great job, I could never do it!" or "WOW... are you crazy? that's more kids than hands!"
3 is my favourite number for kids at a center at school. 3 kids is enough to get along or to evenly split the problem.
Most parents use it to be their "magic number". How many times have you heard "When I get to 3 you had better _______________. 1 (pause) 2 (bigger pause... and sometimes leads to 2 and a half) 3!"
But then you get to 3rd.
3rd place
When did 3rd place become bad? When was it a horrible thing? When did people stop watching the 3rd place WINNER! I mean come on! They won 3rd place! Go you!!
We are NOT a sports family at all. In fact, I still haven't figure out what kind of family we are. I want to say we are a musical family. But K and Q can't keep a tune to save their lives. They LOVE to sing but dang... not in any sort of melody written down. Arnold and K love to do the sound board and make people sound good... so maybe that's where we are? Maybe that's the kind of family?
We aren't really sports related. Arnold does Archery sometimes, and we are looking into getting him out to a club again. I used to (and want to again) do tri's. But aside from the kiddos swimming, cycling on their own time and Kyler now doing track we haven't really done much as far as sports go. We don't really have something our family really gets behind.
However... it's slowly changing. And I love that.
This year we have watched the Olympics! The kids are so interested in skiing. I tried to get them into lessons but apparently that's something you have to do in... SEPTEMBER! who knew!
This year we have also downloaded all the soccer games with the Netherlands in them. We want the kids to see soccer. They are so excited. It helped a lot that their gym teacher also did soccer with them at the end of the year. They were fantastic about the games. Even knowing the outcome we ended up with our favourite players and were very excited to watch soccer with the boys. Kyler is very into it. He loves watching the players and encouraging them on and scrunching up his face when they fall and get hurt. It's so amazing to watch him.
Last night our "team" (the Netherlands... hello Dutch family!) played the semi-finals game. And one of those "I just know" feelings was on me. I just knew that they were going to lose. I don't know why but I did.
I don't have the ability to watch the game live so my phone and I were refreshing every few minutes to see how it was going. The last part was so hard for me... I don't think I've ever pulled the menu down so many times to get up-to-the-second information.
When the game was over my facebook filled up with posts of "good try guys" "maybe next time" "we are out!" "amazing run" "it's over"
One post was from a dear friend and it said "Another amazing run by the Oranje! Feeling sad that its over, but very proud of my Dutch heritage. Hup Holland Hup"
I responded by saying "You know third place is still up for grabs"
She wrote "Nobody cares about third place...LOL...but yes it is, and we will be watching!"
I burst out laughing! I almost spit my pop out on the computer.
Then I got thinking... she's right. No one really seems to care about third place.
Why is that?
Do we really think that only first and second are the best and third really is the "worst" as the saying goes?
When I was a kid, 3rd place was horrible. I hated being anything but the best. But now, if my babies get third place in anything, I'll be their biggest cheerleader and will be so proud of them.
Why?
Because there is always room for improvement. ALWAYS! And third place give them the chance to improve. I'll be there to help them. To encourage them. To tell them they are awesome.
Just now is our family experiencing "who got more A's, Kyler or Quinton" " who is better at _____" "who can do _____ the best"
We aren't really a competing family.
But we are a family who cares, who encourages, and who loves.
No matter what place we are. 1st, 2nd or even 3rd.
