"It's a major award!"

Emma and her dad went to a school conference recently where Emma and some other students from her school presented a project they were working on.  It was like a science fair where students set up a trifold board and explain their projects.  To encourage the students to go around and ask questions of each other they gave them each a booklet to have signed when they did just that. They could enter into a drawing at the end if they completed the assignment.  Emma loves this kind of thing and completed the assignment with great hopes of winning a prize.  When the time came for the drawing the roughly 200 students watched as three beautifully wrapped presents were displayed for the winners. They would call out three names. After the first two names were called Emma turned to her dad and said, "I never win anything." But she knew she had won on the third name when they called out Emma...Waa...lth.... because they always stumble on the last name. She hurried up to claim her prize and came back to her seat with her classmates smiling and cheering her on. This prize was wrapped so beautifully that Emma was sure she must be getting something major like an ipod or even better.  But Aaron watched Emma's demeanor quickly change from excitement to disappointment when she opened it up to discover she had won a.......cheap drawstring bag????? She already has three of those at home.

Aaron is good at these things and was able to bring out the humor of the situation with Emma on the way home. He called it a "major award"and they laughed about it.  We laughed some more when they retold the story.  That's life, isn't it? I think she's learning.

 To make Emma feel even better both Aaron and I told stories from our youth when similar things happened to us.

This is the story I told:

Back in third grade my friend Emily and I signed up to do the three-legged race at an event at our school called the Western Roundup. Our desire to do this came from the awards assembly the year before. We had seen the tall twisty coke bottles filled with bubble gum that they were giving to the winners of the three-legged race and that's all we needed to make the decision. We were going to be in that race next year! When the time came we practiced and practiced every recess we could, many times racing against two of the fastest boys in our grade. Every single time they would beat us by far. But we didn't get down. We had visions of bubble gum-filled bottles in our minds and nothing was going to stop us. The day of the race came. We lined up with our legs tied together and our game faces on. When the gun went off we took off and headed toward the orange cone.  Our steps were flawless and our concentration perfect. As we rounded the cone and headed back to the finish line we were shocked to find that we were way ahead of the pack, including those two boys. Kids were falling down everywhere and we didn't miss a step. It was a glorious moment when we finished in first place. Coke bottles here we come! Unfortunately when we proudly stepped up to collect our award at the assembly later on, we were given lawn darts instead of the bottles.  We didn't even know what lawn darts were and didn't care. It was a sad day. Because it was all about the prize it  took years to realize what an amazing thing we did.  We beat the fastest boys and the rest of the world in the three-legged race.

Hopefully Emma is learning that the kind of prizes they give for free are usually pretty lousy and the best prize is what you feel inside when you have accomplished something great.