Do You Know The Significance of this Photo?

It is the last soccer game of the season.

Could you hear the collective screams of joy from all the parents here? No? Well, they might have been drowned out by the wind, fog, and frigid temperatures.

It was a tournament with the neighboring towns. My eldest son was very disappointed that their team did not win a trophy. His goal in life lately is to win a trophy. He assess all future career aspirations on the basis of whether or not he could win a trophy doing it. For example:

Doctor... yes might be nice to save people and stuff, but they don't hand out trophies at the hospital. Apparently the intrinsic reward of saving someone's life is not enough.

Baseball player... very very good job. Lots of trophies, rings, cards with your photo on them. And the question of what would he think if he was on a baseball team that didn't win was met with a completely blank stare. Of Course his team would win, because he was on it and unlike the soccer team they don't just "let anyone on it", duuuuh.

Businessman, like Dad... sounds really boring. Rob suggested that he could get himself a cute little trophy wife like me. He just looked confused at that one. I am sure our hysterical laughter didn't help either. After a few minutes I did have to tell Rob that I thought he was laughing a *bit* too much for my liking.

After his soccer game we were talking about the game and I told him what a great job he had done as goalie. He recently switched from playing center forward to goalie. The other teams have now been kept to scoring only one or two goals down from ten or more, but now that he isn't a forward and in position to score, their team is scoring nothing.

He looked at me, very seriously and said, "Yeah, but I am just one kid. I can't win the game myself."

I was about to congratulate him for realizing what it means to be a team player, when he asked if we could move to a town where the kids were as good as he is. His modesty makes me proud ;-)