A Rough Day on the Mats

(Don't they look so happy?)

Yesterday, we hosted the wrestling tournament right here in our town. You would think it would make for a less exhausting day but I have come to realize that emotion = exhaustion and yesterday was emotional.

Both Neil and Daniel finished 3rd respectively. They both won two matches and lost two matches.

I admit I came home pretty upset with myself. During Neil's first match, it got pretty ugly. Both the wrestling and the reactions of myself and Kevin. I am not proud. In fact, I let myself stay pretty worked up for a couple hours after his match. I said some not so nice things to the kid...a KID! (I didn't curse at the kid but my reaction was not what it should have been, just want to clarify that) I have prayed a lot about it and I hope I can track down the kid's information so I can apologize to him. I talked to Neil about my reaction and how I was wrong. I want to teach my kids that I mean what I say when we teach them to "leave it on the mat" and to be good sportsman. It doesn't matter what the kid did that got us worked up, what matters is that we were wrong and we can only control ourselves.

Both the boys get pretty worked up emotionally when they lose and of course it makes me emotional to see it. I want to work with them to focus on the fact that they won't always win and how to lose gracefully. In life things don't always turn out the way we want them to but we can choose how to react.

I am proud of all three of our boys and they are such examples to us. Now it's up to us to be good examples for them.

Here are two matches from yesterday.