We had a great time at the game, and Nicholas joined his daddy on the pitch to thank the crowd. Although he was so tired he was almost falling asleep on my shoulder whilst watching the game, he lit up like a christmas light when his father came to pick him up. And he even clapped his little chubby hands for Gnaget (the AIK fanclub) so adorable to watch.
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Winning is all good and dandy, but that is not what we learn the most from. We learn more from losing, and having to lick our wounds, regroup,and figure out how and what we can do to change losing in to winning. We learn from the way we handle our losses; do we take them personally and lie down crying? Or do we take them as a personal challenge to do better and try harder for success next time.
I guess where I am going with this, is that I think it is important to let our kids learn how to lose and how to be graciously bad at something, and realise that maybe this particular something isn't for you. Because we are not all equally good at everything, although we are all good at something, and in order to find that something I think we as parents have to gently lead our children in the right direction. In other words, not always say that they are the best at everything they try to do. But praising them for the hard work they are putting in to it, and really opening our eyes and giving plenty of praise when they really are good at something, whether we like what they are good at or not.
We also have to let our kids really be proud when they are best at something, not tell them to be a "good" winner and not "rub it in others faces", as long as they really did do great let them celebrate, jump,dance and scream to their hearts content, after all winning feels good! And we appreciate it the most when we've worked for it. Just as we shouldn't give up as soon as something doesn't go our way, we should take the time to really be happy when they do, and appreciate the lessons we learn from winning as well.. That hard work and percervierence pays off!
photos by Jesper Zerman, to see more of his photos or to order prints check out his webpage here.
He has some awsome pictures, some of which are definitely making my wall...
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Yesterday I was in a very "crafty" mood, so I picked up some things at the store to try to make my own slightly different version of these
I bought some simple white cardboard letters, I chose only to buy Nicholas' initials as his name is too long to fit on the shelves in his room. I also bought some different fabrics that I liked, a nice blue paint, and glue. I used a simple craft glue stick, which was really handy as i could put glue right on the fabric, and on the letters as well.
I then took a pen and drew around the outline of each letter, cut the fabric letter out, and glued the fabric to the paper letter. I chose to use different fabrics on the front, back and sides of the letters, to give them a more "home-made" look. Inside the more difficult-to-get-to places I chose to paint, as I liked how it looked I decided to leave one part of each letter pained.
This is how they turned out.
I will post a picture later today where you can see more clearly how they look from all angles. I like them :)
Now it is off to bed for me, big day here tomorrow! Swedish Midsommar celebration, and we are going to Lee and Karin Baxter's house to celebrate in true Swedish fashion, dancing around the maypole and all. I've never celebrated midsummer before so I am looking forwards to it!! I even bought flowers so I can make Nicholas one of these
Not in the same colours, and probably will not look as nice, but I will give it a go, and update you tomorrow, or the day after on how it went with plenty of photos!Happy Midsommar to all of you!
Maria
