Trouble

We were playing Trouble again. Ethan has a thing about board games. We usually play at least one a day. Sometimes many more. I guess he loves the predictability; the rules.

So this time we were playing Trouble, a game that until this Christmas when we bought it for him, I hadn't played since grade school. (I love the little popper in the middle for the dice. Everyone loves the popper.)

This particular game, I happened to be doing really well. The kind of well that made me nervous because I figured he'd probably start crying in a few minutes and concede defeat. All of my pegs were out of "Home" and flying around the board. He only had one blue peg out of the home spot. In order to move the pegs out, you have to pop a "6."

That's what was infuriating me. Ethan kept popping sixes but wouldn't move his guys out. He wanted to only move the one peg he had on the board, going all the way around, until he reached the end.

"What are you doing?" I kept nagging. "Sometimes it takes forever to pop a six. You have to move your guys out."

"No!" he shouted. "I want to do it this way."

"Fine, but you're going to lose," I threw out there, thinking that would get him. Nope. He was a boy with a mission. Move his one peg until it got where it needed to be, then focus on the others.

Somehow in the next few minutes, something amazing happened. Well, not for me. I sat there and watched as he moved his guy into place and then got a six to start the next one. Before I knew it, he had headed across the board and managed to land on two of my pegs and send them home. He gracefully moved his next two pegs around the board and into the finish position. My guys sat stuck. Now I was the one who couldn't pop a six. He meanwhile popped another one and took one last trip around the board before two of my guys even got started. He not only won, he won handily.

There's something to be said for singular focus.

There's something to be said for not having all of your balls up in the air, juggling the world, plagued with distraction and trying to make it all happen.

There's something to be said for having confidence that your steadfast, plodding way might just be the way to victory.

There's something to be said for winning the unconventional way; for victories that come where and when you least expect them.

Thanks, Ethan.