You Can Do Hard Things!

The greatest hoodwink of all time has to be almost 18 years ago when I somehow convinced Laura to marry me.  Fortunately for me two of her greatest characteristics are commitment and loyalty which have motivated her to try to make the best of that momentary lapse of judgement.  I am a much better person because of her example in my life.  When we started raising children almost 17 years ago I was overwhelmed.  I was sure that I had missed a required parenting class somewhere along the way.  (Kind of like the dream where you show up for a final exam in school and realize that you had forgotten to attend that class the whole semester.  I still have that dream to this day).  Laura, on the other hand, was completely unfazed by the transition.  It was so natural for her.  Maybe it is because she had already completed a year of raising the first child in our home...me. With Laura in my life I feel like I can survive the diverse hardships that life brings.  

I can remember on several occasions while visiting Grandma and Grandma Heika (Laura's parents) my young children would get discouraged trying to do something and bemoan, "It's too hard!"  I was touched as I observed the mother of my dear wife patiently approach the child and declare, "You can do hard things!  You have smart parts!".  Sure enough, with this new found confidence, my child would accomplish the task at hand. This quote has become a family favorite.  If anyone in the family is caught saying something like "it's hard", you can be sure that at least one other person (especially Lindsay) will quickly chime in with, "You can do hard things, because you have smart parts". 

It is amazing what we can accomplish when someone shows faith in us.  I am reminded of the quote "Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be, and he will become as he can and should be." (Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe). I believe that is a true principle.  In our Marriage and Family class at church our instructor told us the story of a woman he knew in a previous ward that was an amazing cook.  Everyone wanted to attend parties at her house to sample some of her creations.  He asked the husband where she learned her culinary art.  He confessed that when they were first married she was a terrible cook.  In fact, the only thing she made that was edible was spaghetti.  So whenever they were around other people he made it a point to mention how well his wife cooked spaghetti.  These compliments gave her confidence and motivated her to continue to improve her cooking skill.  She learned to excel in something that was hard for her because her husband treated her like she already was a great chef. 

I need to do a better job of pointing at the positive in others and reminding them of how special they are.  There is good and bad in everyone (quote from Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson) and I just need to look past the bad and focus on the good.  Giddy Up, StevieG

D-Man Madness

I really enjoy watching the NCAA basketball tournament known as March Madness.  I must admit that I really don't follow the college basketball season until March rolls around and the tournament begins. My brother Eric or Brian will usually setup a group online where all the extended family is invited to create a "bracket" with their choice of winners and losers.  The winner gets lunch brought to them on the beach during our annual reunion in San Diego.  However, the bigger prize is to have bragging rights for the rest of the year.  This is especially sweet when one of the kids or wives humbles their proud, sports-following husbands.

This year I made sure that Laura and all our kids created a bracket.  Since they don't know the schools I explained to them how the seeding works (lower numbers usually mean better teams) but also explained that the tournament is famous for upsets.  When Daniel (10) created his bracket he later told me that he got confused for a few minutes part way through and thought that the bigger number seed were the better teams.  This created a very interesting bracket to say the least.  In just one of the four regions he had unknowingly chosen some very low seeded teams (12, 13, 14, 15) to win a few games.  Since he got back on track and picked the better teams to prevail in the end I didn't even notice his hiccup until after the tournament started.  In fact, it was his uncle Eric and cousins who noticed after the first day when Daniel had correctly picked some incredible upsets.  Not only was he leading our family group, he was one of the top people in the millions of brackets on ESPN.  We had a good laugh that first day and figured that it would be all downhill from there.

Well, the upsets continued over the weekend and Daniel is now up to 25th place in the entire ESPN tournament challenge.  Somehow one of the teachers at school found out and had paraded Daniel around from class to class explaining what an amazing feat he had accomplished.  Daniel is obviously very excited but is also handling it very well.  I have now given up on my bracket (2nd to last in the family pool) and am pulling for Daniel the rest of the way.  He is going to need a miracle from BYU this week to win just one more game.  He has become very interested on the details of the winning prize.  I think he is envisioning the entire San Diego family reunion (50+ people) to all go buy him lunch and bring it back to him as he lounges alone on the beach.  He'll enjoy his breakfast burrito and rolled tacos while his Dad and uncles eat a healthy portion of humble pie.

Giddy Up, DMan!