Full of purpose, drained of energy

Wow, what a weekend! As I mentioned late last weekend, the Dungan household was split on Saturday. A little before 4:00 AM Lynley scooped Graham out of bed and headed for San Antonio for another Tae Kwon Do tournament. I on the other hand stayed local. I had the girls and our job was to be at the Neuroblastoma Walk.

Yes, it was a busy start. Graham ended up taking a silver medal in the tournament. Of course, you have to know that had I been there he most certainly would have made gold. Yep, I got that kind of pull. You see, it takes a very careful balance of gentle encouragement and aggressive incentivize-ation to truly get results. If you don't handle it just right you can get mixed results. This is exactly what happened. Oh sure, Lynley did a great job of supporting Graham with those things form the stands. However, what she totally forgot to do was to do was how to manage Master Adrian. I did not hear about any encouragement there - no coffee from starbucks, no muffin from cinnabon. What was she thinking? If you want to win you have to suck up to the coach. In fact, I doubt Lynley yelled on Master Adrian's behalf even once. While I am sure it was much more pleasant for Master Adrian not having to deal with me in the stands, it clearly did not get the results we were looking for in the gold medal match. Usually the coaches pull out all of the stops just to shut me up . Without my annoyance they clearly weren't incentivized enough. That should teach us all a lesson. Clearly, they need me.

Yep, Master Adrian just loves me.

In reality and much to my chagrin, the reason Graham lost had nothing to do with my lack of presence. From what I gathered there were a few different issues. First, the boy that won the gold medal was pretty aggressive. He kept pushing Graham and that got into his psyche. Graham couldn't figure out why they weren't calling a pushing "foul" on the other kid and it ultimately flustered him. There were also some issues with missed kicks to the head, etc. Graham thought it was unfair and concentrated on that instead of finishing the match. It wasn't just Graham's match. From what I understand, there were many problems and complaints throughout the day with the referees. Our school was so disappointed in the quality of the tournament management and the officiating that we may no longer be participating in AAU events. Regardless, Graham may have been hampered by these elements but ultimately it was his problem. He lost the match mentally. He let those other factors impact his performance and that is totally a Daddy issue. That is what I need to work with him on. Unfortunately, the reality is that life isn't always fair and it never will be. What matters is what we do with what we have been given - that we make the best of a given situation. We have to teach him that reality. It is a good opportunity for twerp training.

On another note, the girls and I made it to the Walk which raised over $110,000.00 (est.) for neuroblastoma research. The turnout was incredible with some people having to park almost a quarter of a mile away just to participate. I think we may have outgrown the venue. It was an incredible day and a tremendous amount of fun. Now comes the best part. I can't wait to see what the neuroblastoma team at Cook's does with it.

Now, if all of this seemed like enough for the weekend you were way off. Saturday afternoon we had Jillian spend the night. That left me with 3 girls for the remainder of the day. As a surprise for Lynley, I also purchased and laid some new sod in the back yard. Sunday morning we went to the zoo. Sunday afternoon Graham and I spent ice skating at a birthday party in Arlington. Friday evening I walked a gas grill five blocks to my mother's house. Don't ask! This was, of course, on top of our usual honey dos, laundry and cleaning of the house. Yep, another typical weekend at the Dungan household.

And believe it or not, the kids were still bored at times.

Thank goodness I have a lot of purpose because I don't have much energy left.