Chess competition

The school district had a chess tournament last week.  I thought I'd take both Graham and Charlie to it just to give them an idea what goes on, as I have NO idea what goes on in one of these events.  Well, after about 5 minutes, they were both bored and then, both of them suggested that they play in the competition instead!

I wasn't sure about signing them up to begin with but with them being so persistent...

Charlie was so super excited.  Can you tell?

So was Graham but unfortunately, he lost all of his games:

By the end of it, Charlie also lost all of his games except for one.  When the competition was all over, the boys walked over and Charlie was hugging me in tears and Graham was hugging Bobby in tears. It broke my heart!  Not only were we $100 down... now we had 2 really upset kids.  Ha ha! Okay, joking aside - Bobby and I were definitely trying to use this moment to teach them a valuable lesson about "Doing our best".  The organizer saw Graham crying and gave him a "Participant medal" which I later convinced Graham to give up.  Is it just me - I mean, don't kids have to learn a thing or two about losing???

The next morning, both boys had recovered from an "interesting" night.  And just before stepping out to go to school, I notice these cute little chess pieces.  Both Graham and Charlie got these keychain chess pieces from participating in the chess tournament.  How cool!

Well, next time I may have to be more careful about taking Graham and Charlie to an event "to just watch"!