Get Your Head in the Game

I’m pretty sure I do not have a competitive bone in my body. Maybe against myself, trying to run faster, be better, but when it comes to playing games or sports, I just wanna have fun.

I enjoy a good board game (except Monopoly-I hate that game more than Satan…well pretty close..) and I will try to win but once anyone starts getting aggressive or violent (I’ve seen it happen) I immediately shut down and pay more attention to the snacks laying about. My sister-in-law thinks I hate playing games but that’s not true. I just hate playing games with her family. She’s super competitive and to get an idea about her dad, times her by about 25.

Like I said. I’ve seen it get violent.

**Long, pointless side note: One of our favorite stories of my SIL was the time she was playing TABOO with her family. You know, you get a word and you try to get your team to guess it but you can’t use the words listed on the card. Well she got “Easy-Off”, the oven cleaner. She decided to go the route of using opposite words and hand actions mimicking cleaning the oven. So as she pretending to rub the inside of an oven she started saying, “Hard on. Hard on. Hard on.” Over and over. All the while everyone is looking at her in shock and a little shame, wondering what on earth they could possibly say. She just starts doing it faster and louder and can’t figure out why no one is getting such an easy answer.

When she realized her mistake she was mortified. The players were just very grateful it was a mistake.

Her dad hasn’t been able to look her in the eye ever since.

That has gone down in the Hall of Fame of Jeanette-isms and will live on for generations.

**End of long, pointless side note**

Anyway..I am the same way with sports. I just wanna play to play. I really don’t care to win. Just have fun. I keep trying to get involved in church sports and I am thoroughly humiliated by the fact I have upset my fellow Sisters in the Gospel so much by my bad shot or not setting the ball correctly and knowing they wish they didn’t have to put me in the game. These ladies take it all pretty seriously. So I just don’t bother anymore.

I am beginning to realize that my 7 year old may have my noncompetitive gene. We have her in soccer this year and I love watching this age play! It’s still young enough it doesn’t get too crazy with aggression but they are old enough they mostly know how to play and enjoy it. I’ll be watching her out there on the field and she’ll be holding hands with her little friend as they run after the ball. Every time anyone scores, she cheers. The most classic moment was last week. It was our first experience with ‘one of those coaches’ who was yelling at the kids and very serious. He wasn’t mean but he wasn’t pleasant about it either. Our team kept telling our coach that the other team was hitting and pushing them. So not a real fun team to play against. When our coach went to talk to the other coach about it, the other coach got right in his face and started yelling at him that ‘he didn’t tell the kids to push and hit! They’re in first grade ! It’s what they do!!’

Defensive much?

Let’s up our dose of happy pills, dude.

So I asked my daughter about it later and she said there was this one really mean girl that said, “Do you want some candy?” and, of course my daughter said yes and that’s when the girl took the ball from her and took off. My daughter’s response? “And she didn’t even give me any candy!!”

The last few minutes of the game she was put on defense right in front of their goalie with her friend, who also doesn’t exactly focus on the game at hand. They were over there spinning, picking dandelions, chatting etc. The coach went over to call them to the sideline and this is how they came to him:

Just skipping right along, enjoying the spring day!

But as long as they come away enjoying the experience, who cares about the end score, right?!