bakugan tournament
so today's field trip was to toys'r'us for their "BAKUGAN TRAINING CAMP AND TOURNAMENT!!!" the night before, the kids sat and carefully selected their bad-assest bakugan and cards to take to battle, and i explained, so that they wouldn't get their hopes up about winning, that there would likely be some kid there who had really, really powerful bakugan that they wouldn't be able to beat, and it was okay, it didn't mean that they sucked, they were just going to have fun, etc. i felt that i had to prepare them for the possibility that bakugan had gone the way of pokemon, wherein 16-year-old SAK's spend hundreds of dollars on eBay to stack their decks with the rarest, most powerful cards, and take great satisfaction in going to pokemon tournaments and kicking 6-year-olds' asses until they cry.
happily, this bakugan tournament was not at all like that. there were about 10 other kids, all under the age of 10, and all really sweet. there was one 8-year-old who had a ridiculously powerful bakugan that nobody could defeat, but he was so nice that he was helping SpazMonkey choose cards to play when battling against him, and he seemed genuinely surprised every time he won a battle. the oldest kid there was very confident, had an entire, well-organized spinning rack full of bakugan, but he was also unfailingly polite, and when he wasn't playing a round himself, he sat down next to DramaQueen to help him with his strategy, and not only wasn't pushy about it, he was encouraging every time DQ was defeated, high-fiving and hugging him like a good big brother (even though he seemed to be an only child himself.)
EvilGremlin took 3rd place in the tournament, winning a carlsnaut, which is a BRAND NEW SEASON 2 PREVIEW NEW VESTROIA BAKUTRAP (ooooooo! ahhhhhhhhh!)
DramaQueen was initially upset when the tournament was over and he hadn't won a single match against anyone. as he started to cry, i told him that when big kids and little kids play together, the big kids usually win, that's just how it is, and someday he would be the big kid. and i'll be damned if that didn't work perfectly. he stopped crying, and he was totally cool. i need to write that one down so i remember it for the next kid! also, it didn't hurt that they all got a bakugan poster, some candy and magnets and other random participation prizes. the highlight for me, though, was that they were all gracious losers (and EG a gracious winner), and a close second was the reminder that there are far more good kids out there than turds. turning my kids loose to play in the streets almost invariably ends with some other kid being an asshole to them, and of course getting away with it, because the only kid you can turn loose on the street and not worry about is an asshole (or possibly enormous and freakishly strong. they're a lot rarer than your garden-variety asshole, though.) after several incidents in a row, i start to wonder if my kids aren't sheltered pussies, then i remember that it's been this way since i was a kid, and probably since long before that - the kids allowed to roam the streets unsupervised are assholes. their parents don't watch them, because they don't have to - their kid isn't the one who gets hurt, so why worry about that other kid who's crying suspiciously near him? if your kid says he didn't do nuthin, that's good enough for you! why get off your ass to explore the possibility that you've set up a "parenting" system in which your child's every lie and bullying tactic is rewarded by your laziness? any kid who isn't an asshole is going to lose in that lord-of-the-flies regime, so your choices are to teach your kid how to beat assholes by being bigger assholes, or to stay out of the game entirely.
watching my kids grow up to be polite - not just snivelling ass-kissers when they know adults are watching and pencil-dicked tyrants when they know adults are NOT watching, but genuinely kind, fair, and nice, even when they think nobody is watching - is well worth it to me, and obviously to a lot of other parents, too. i'll happily suffer the scorn of lazy parents for my "uptightness." i'm pretty sure i win.
but i digress! after the tournament, we went to an A&W retaurant for cheese curds, cheeseburgers, cheese dogs, chili cheese fries, and root beer floats. they have never had root beer floats before, despite ice cream and root beer being two of their favorite forms of sugar. two years ago, they were disgusted by the idea of combining the two, and when we stopped at an A&W restaurant a year ago, their soft-serve machine was broken. today happened to be "mega-super-gulp for the price of a small float" day, so they were dumbstruck by the paper cups so tall that they had to stand in their chairs to get the ends of the 2-foot-long straws in their mouths.
don't worry. the intense sugar high was somewhere between "syringe full of epinephrine" and "hooker's cleavage full of coke," which totally cleared the cholesterol out of their bodies. it's called a "balanced diet."
happily, this bakugan tournament was not at all like that. there were about 10 other kids, all under the age of 10, and all really sweet. there was one 8-year-old who had a ridiculously powerful bakugan that nobody could defeat, but he was so nice that he was helping SpazMonkey choose cards to play when battling against him, and he seemed genuinely surprised every time he won a battle. the oldest kid there was very confident, had an entire, well-organized spinning rack full of bakugan, but he was also unfailingly polite, and when he wasn't playing a round himself, he sat down next to DramaQueen to help him with his strategy, and not only wasn't pushy about it, he was encouraging every time DQ was defeated, high-fiving and hugging him like a good big brother (even though he seemed to be an only child himself.)
EvilGremlin took 3rd place in the tournament, winning a carlsnaut, which is a BRAND NEW SEASON 2 PREVIEW NEW VESTROIA BAKUTRAP (ooooooo! ahhhhhhhhh!)
DramaQueen was initially upset when the tournament was over and he hadn't won a single match against anyone. as he started to cry, i told him that when big kids and little kids play together, the big kids usually win, that's just how it is, and someday he would be the big kid. and i'll be damned if that didn't work perfectly. he stopped crying, and he was totally cool. i need to write that one down so i remember it for the next kid! also, it didn't hurt that they all got a bakugan poster, some candy and magnets and other random participation prizes. the highlight for me, though, was that they were all gracious losers (and EG a gracious winner), and a close second was the reminder that there are far more good kids out there than turds. turning my kids loose to play in the streets almost invariably ends with some other kid being an asshole to them, and of course getting away with it, because the only kid you can turn loose on the street and not worry about is an asshole (or possibly enormous and freakishly strong. they're a lot rarer than your garden-variety asshole, though.) after several incidents in a row, i start to wonder if my kids aren't sheltered pussies, then i remember that it's been this way since i was a kid, and probably since long before that - the kids allowed to roam the streets unsupervised are assholes. their parents don't watch them, because they don't have to - their kid isn't the one who gets hurt, so why worry about that other kid who's crying suspiciously near him? if your kid says he didn't do nuthin, that's good enough for you! why get off your ass to explore the possibility that you've set up a "parenting" system in which your child's every lie and bullying tactic is rewarded by your laziness? any kid who isn't an asshole is going to lose in that lord-of-the-flies regime, so your choices are to teach your kid how to beat assholes by being bigger assholes, or to stay out of the game entirely.
watching my kids grow up to be polite - not just snivelling ass-kissers when they know adults are watching and pencil-dicked tyrants when they know adults are NOT watching, but genuinely kind, fair, and nice, even when they think nobody is watching - is well worth it to me, and obviously to a lot of other parents, too. i'll happily suffer the scorn of lazy parents for my "uptightness." i'm pretty sure i win.
but i digress! after the tournament, we went to an A&W retaurant for cheese curds, cheeseburgers, cheese dogs, chili cheese fries, and root beer floats. they have never had root beer floats before, despite ice cream and root beer being two of their favorite forms of sugar. two years ago, they were disgusted by the idea of combining the two, and when we stopped at an A&W restaurant a year ago, their soft-serve machine was broken. today happened to be "mega-super-gulp for the price of a small float" day, so they were dumbstruck by the paper cups so tall that they had to stand in their chairs to get the ends of the 2-foot-long straws in their mouths.
don't worry. the intense sugar high was somewhere between "syringe full of epinephrine" and "hooker's cleavage full of coke," which totally cleared the cholesterol out of their bodies. it's called a "balanced diet."
posted by welfareloser at 10:05 PM
1 Comments:
oh my gosh...i am a high school teacher and mother of 2 and i thoroughly enjoyed your rant. i think i laughed out loud about 5 times. thank you.
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