What a busy month so far.  With Cody taking on his new job, travel for his job, travel for my job- it’s been busy.  And I decided to do a Layout-A-Day Challenge this month.  But there have been some really great times this month as well.  Like seeing Jack play basketball Tuesday night.  It was most definetely worth the travel and it messing up our NCIS date night.

His team had been undefeated until Tuesday when they lost to their league’s other undefeated team.  Jack impressed me with both his speed and his persistence throughout the game.  We talked a lot about the game over Pizza Tuesday night.  Cody stayed behind and spent yesterday afternoon doing sports stuff with Jack.  When he got home tonight we talked more about Jack and what seems to be a natural ability to learn and play sports.  So, it’s only natural that when I sat down to create my layout today,  Jack was fresh on the brain.

Journaling Reads: Winning, Losing, and Performance. It was the theme of our dinner conversation Tuesday after you lost your basketball game. No one likes to lose a game, I know. When we asked about whether you had fun, you said that the football coaches you’d seen earlier in the day said it wasn’t about fun, it was about winning.  As Cody and I were talking about how well you could do in sports today, we talked about how much I wanted you to learn about winning.  Some say winning isn’t everything- some say it’s the only thing.  I lean towards it being the only thing. Only it’s not the win ming “the game” that is the only thing. I want you to learn and know that there’s more one way to measure winning or success. You win when you give it you all. You win when you give have fun. You win when you’re a great teammate and show great character.  Do you remember when David DeJesus got the triple in the 9th inning as the Royals were losing badly?  He had a smile on his face as he signed your baseball.  He knew that you can measure winning in more than one way- he hadn’t given up.  I heard Mitch Maeir talking about it just yesterday- you have to learn to control what you can control and let go of the rest.  You possess their winning traits- you give it your all and you’re always learning to be better- it’s what makes you so good.  Sure, playing sports isn’t all fun, and I want you to learn to work hard.  Losing the game is certainly not easy to take.  But, you have to look in  your heart not at the scoreboard- if you know you did the best you could do and you took some joy from the game, you’ve already won.