I love to watch you play!

I once read an article, whose goal was to temper over-the-top sports parents. You know, the stereotypical dad (or mom) who screams at his kid incessantly throughout the game, the one who screams at the coach, screams at the referees, screams at the parents of the opposing players, screams at everybody! If you've ever had a kid play sports, you've met this parent at least a time or two. It's always sad. And embarrassing.

The point of the article is that, really, the only thing you need to say to your kid after the game are these six words: "I love to watch you play." And by extension, I love to watch you sing, or dance, or swim, or ski, or cheer, or perform, or run, or jump. "I love to watch you play." It offers no judgment about how well the kid did; it simply expresses our joy in being present. It speaks to the process, not the product. And for me, at least, it's much more honest.

My five children have never been the superstars of anything. They're just regular kids, who participate in various activities of their choice. They will never be professionals at any of these activities, nor do they need to be. But to me, they are the stars. Always. And regardless of what they do, I love to watch them.

Yesterday, Isaiah played in a local DotA 2 (Defense of the Ancients) tournament. Now I should point out that I have absolutely zero understanding of DotA. Honestly, it's the most confusing, convoluted game I've ever seen. There are heroes and towers and ancients to defend. There are items and cosmetics and creeps. It's all very complicated. Isaiah taught Seth to play several years ago, and together, they speak an entirely foreign language all wrapped around this game.

Still, when Seth texted (from work) that Isaiah's team was in the finals, I asked Gerald to find it streaming on Twitch, and I was all in. Isaiah has used the gaming handle "Tehmop" for over a decade, so I know whom to look for. Every time I saw "Tehmop" fly across the screen, I cheered: "There he is! That's my baby!" Gerald and I tried to figure out if his team was winning its first game of the "best two of three" finals, but we were clueless. There's just no way to tell. Finally the sportscaster commented that he'd rarely seen a team coordinate so well as Team Classic was, so we thought that had to be good. The highlight was when the caster said "I'm not sure how Tehmop managed to escape that one, but he did."

"Did you hear that?" They mentioned Isaiah by name!

After winning the first game of the finals, they were on to the second, and Seth was back. I hoped he might be able to shed some light on what we were watching. He tried, but this game is seriously impossible to understand. You can't even tell when it's going to end, but Seth at least could tell us that Isaiah's team was playing well, and that Isaiah was busy "farming." Well, okay.

In the end, they won the tournament! They won eight straight games. Woo hoo!

But for me, the joy was just watching. Watching Tehmop's character swinging his sword, his pet armadillo following by his side. Because for me......

I love to watch you play!