It's all about having fun...

I love spending time with Bryce, so when he came and asked me to play Chutes and Ladders and Candyland with him, I agreed. Oh, the minefield I naively stepped into. :) You see, Bryce not only likes to play games, he likes to win. By saying he likes to win, I mean he apparently feels a deep seated need to win--every time. I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose, as I'm a bit competitive myself. Rissa says this is my payback for my own overly competitive ways, in fact. At the end of every game where I'm winning I'm forced to make the moral choice v. the sanity choice. In the end I believe winning leading to grief and an opportunity to teach a lesson is better than cheating to lose and effectively lying to my kid while demonstrating that he should always win. That doesn't make it less difficult to do. Today, for example, I had a choice that I could either win or let him win (within the rules) at Candyland. He looks up at me and says "Daddy, you should choose the purple card so I can win." I chose the other card and we had a good conversation, but it was tough. It probably shouldn't be, but it was.

As a corollary to this observation, I have become aware of something about myself today. I actually mellow and mature, at least a little, with age given the right circumstances. I was a crazy aggressive driver, until I moved to MD for a few years. In the face of far more insane drivers, I became a very good driver. I still get where I need to go very well, but not with the bad attitude previously displayed and felt. It appears my son has created the same response in my as it relates to competition. Until Bryce was about 2 or 3, I was one of the more competitive people you would ever meet. I would race my wife to the sofa--even if she wasn't racing. Now, in the face of his over the top competitiveness, I find myself much calmer and willing to back off. It is not that I don't prefer winning, but that I seem to deal with losing in a much better manner.