On competition and more

I had a busy week with heaps of deadlines and lots to do. I delivered my last deadline item this morning and although there are heaps of the usual things to catch up on I can breathe a bit easier for now.

The last week has been full of activities and the usual run of the mill stuff. C had a Judo tournament and got a gold medal, A got her gold merit badge at school (the quickest she has done it since grade 1) and just way too many of the little things in life to mention. The big event though was the English schools speech festival yesterday afternoon.

Although we are not an English school we do present English on a first language level and hence, we take part in this festival. A has always done well in this and with her background in drama it comes easy. However C decided immediately as we received word of this that he wanted to participate too. He totally surprised us by learning his poem in no time and adding the appropriate  expressions etc. I then realised that for the first time these two will participate in an event where they could see it as a competition. Now C and  L have in fact competed directly against each other in Judo - but there were no issues. I was sort of fearing issues here as these two seem to naturally gravitate towards competing for our attention or whatever. (I am often given the impossible task to chose say the prettiest picture etc - drives me nuts).

So we had the appropriate talk the night before about just doing our best and supporting each other etc. On the afternoon they both asked to be with the other when they did their item and as time worked out, we could. Both got a gold, which made me very very proud and possibly averted unpleasant issues.

However I know the time WILL come when they will go heads on with something or the other. Maybe as close as the end of year prize giving - lo and behold if one may win some special prize. I guess it's just another of those very hard lessons we have to teach our children. And to which they seem to each react so differently. I guess some of it we can chalk up to personality only and others to birth order. But address we have to.