We ended up in Twin Falls this weekend for Jonathan's judo tournament. The trip down was just Tammy, Teila, Elizabeth, Jonathan and myself as Ron was already there for work. Thanks Tammy for the ride! We enjoyed the treats, the Teila comments (Have you spent time with a teenager lately? Oh my goodness! It is like the world is a new place for them and they have just arrived! More stories about this I am sure will come now that I am excited about blogging again!) That night, the kids got to swim in the motel which made their evening. In the morning, Jonathan was geared up and ready to go, begging to "play up" at the tournament. Not that we try to discourage him in anything he does, but we tried to explain that this tournament was going to be hard, he has had rough time this year (Well, maybe our tournament wasn't his fault as he left with a fever was horribly sick!) and that the scoring was different than most tournaments. So, well, yes, I guess as parents we did try to persuade him into just sticking to his own division. But our little guy was determined, so we paid the extra $5.00 give him the "you wanted this, no backing out now, no crying to us, we tried to tell you" speech. I am sure it is a typical speech we heard from our parents sometime in our lives!
The tournament begins and our little man proved us wrong and did absolutely amazing! In fact, I have to say, he was relaxed, focused, and really seemed to be enjoying the whole competition atmosphere. He took 2nd in his division (losing by just one opponent for first) and he fought hard and tough and took 3rd in the 11-12 year olds. I enjoyed the day and actually didn't mind sitting there watching! Even Elizabeth was getting into the whole "Judo" thing throughout the day! So that is telling you something!
So, what we learned......listen to our children. They may sometimes know more than we think they do!
