March Madness Indeed
My son W is WAAAY into sports these days. Like his father, he has soaked up the NCAA tournament like a plant soaks the sun. The bed time envelope has been pushed many, many times during the last few weeks, with pleas of "Mom, I just want to see who wins this game."
Before this whole thing started, my husband left town on yet another business trip with a directive for his family: complete your brackets. Come on, really? I outgrew this when I was in my 20s and working at an agency. BUT, the thought of doing this with my kids started to take on a shine, and I decided this would soon become a family tradition.
So we filled out our brackets. This being our inaugural family excursion into this territory, it was an adventure. My husband, being out of town, left me to guide the children in the task at hand. The pressure was on. W, taking this whole thing to heart, studied his brackets and listened diligently as I explained to him how it worked. After shrugging off my offers of help, he sat at the kitchen table mulling things over for WAAAAY longer than I ever would have.
"Mom, is it better to pick these based on the teams' records or which team you want to win?"
"You can do either one or the other, or both. Vote with your head, your heart OR your gut. Or a combination of all three." Kind of a good lesson for life. I'm going to have to remember this one.
20 minutes later, he was done. Like my husband, he took the scientific approach.
I did mine, based on a combination of family ties (my sister lives in Connecticut), history (come on Kentucky!) and allegiance to my home city (Richmond had not one, but TWO teams included - woot woot!).
W helped Little Meems choose hers. He very eager for her to participate, her not wanting to stop brushing her American Girl Doll's hair.
She chose all her teams without even LOOKING at him. She never strayed from her task. I haven't seen that kind of concentration in her in, well, ever. Why now?
As I know her pretty well, I could tell she was choosing based on family geography, her allegiance to her home town, and names that sounded pretty. As a result, she had both University of Richmond and VCU going to the Final Four, with Richmond topping VCU to play UConn. With Richmond winning.
Now, let's be honest. None of us saw Richmond schools doing as well as they did. No matter how badly we wanted them to. But she had a confidence in her selections. And it bugged her brother to no end. He couldn't BELIEVE she would choose two unproven teams to go so far. He thought she was a fool.
Turns out, the joke was on him. And me. And her father (who came in dead last in our little competition). W came in 3rd. Mom came in 2nd. And that Little Meeems...
The prize: going out to dinner wherever she wanted.
And so, Chick-Fil-A hosted a champion this evening for dinner, and you know they had no idea. She's not the type to lord her win over anyone, or to even be that affected by it whatsoever. I love that about her.
Until next year...
Before this whole thing started, my husband left town on yet another business trip with a directive for his family: complete your brackets. Come on, really? I outgrew this when I was in my 20s and working at an agency. BUT, the thought of doing this with my kids started to take on a shine, and I decided this would soon become a family tradition.
So we filled out our brackets. This being our inaugural family excursion into this territory, it was an adventure. My husband, being out of town, left me to guide the children in the task at hand. The pressure was on. W, taking this whole thing to heart, studied his brackets and listened diligently as I explained to him how it worked. After shrugging off my offers of help, he sat at the kitchen table mulling things over for WAAAAY longer than I ever would have.
"Mom, is it better to pick these based on the teams' records or which team you want to win?"
"You can do either one or the other, or both. Vote with your head, your heart OR your gut. Or a combination of all three." Kind of a good lesson for life. I'm going to have to remember this one.
20 minutes later, he was done. Like my husband, he took the scientific approach.
I did mine, based on a combination of family ties (my sister lives in Connecticut), history (come on Kentucky!) and allegiance to my home city (Richmond had not one, but TWO teams included - woot woot!).
W helped Little Meems choose hers. He very eager for her to participate, her not wanting to stop brushing her American Girl Doll's hair.
She chose all her teams without even LOOKING at him. She never strayed from her task. I haven't seen that kind of concentration in her in, well, ever. Why now?
As I know her pretty well, I could tell she was choosing based on family geography, her allegiance to her home town, and names that sounded pretty. As a result, she had both University of Richmond and VCU going to the Final Four, with Richmond topping VCU to play UConn. With Richmond winning.
Now, let's be honest. None of us saw Richmond schools doing as well as they did. No matter how badly we wanted them to. But she had a confidence in her selections. And it bugged her brother to no end. He couldn't BELIEVE she would choose two unproven teams to go so far. He thought she was a fool.
Turns out, the joke was on him. And me. And her father (who came in dead last in our little competition). W came in 3rd. Mom came in 2nd. And that Little Meeems...
The prize: going out to dinner wherever she wanted.
And so, Chick-Fil-A hosted a champion this evening for dinner, and you know they had no idea. She's not the type to lord her win over anyone, or to even be that affected by it whatsoever. I love that about her.
Until next year...
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