Dealing with disappointment is tough. Number 4 didn’t make the cheerleading team and was appropriately heartbroken. No one wants to see their baby hurt. That was tough. I said all of the dad-type stuff: they are missing out, get ’em next time, use this as motivation, when one door closes another will open, etc.. I don’t think any of it worked, and I just held her. On a lighter note, it’s opening day of duck season, so Number 2 walked all over the house with his chest waders on. The traces from the final hunt of last year are more than memory today.
A couple of weeks ago, while sending 2 and 3 out the door, Number 2 asked why I haven’t been writing notes to put in their lunches this year. Last year, on the days I’m not traveling for work, I got up early, made the kids their lunches, and put a note in each one’s lunch box. Their mom started it. She would write something sweet…mom-type stuff. That is not really my thing, so I would look for cool quotes that seemed to fit the day or something they were going through. For 2, 3, and 4, it’s a note on a napkin. For Number 1, it’s a text.
Quotes:
1. “It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
2. “A man has to be what he is.” – Shane
3. “A cat that dreams of becoming a lion must lose its appetite for rats.” – African Proverb
4. “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Sources:
It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky pic.twitter.com/lWxD5ZFfvK
— Muse (@xmuse_) October 22, 2025
(This was a comment in a long Twitter thread on Dostoevsky that I linked to yesterday. It is very good, highly recommend.)
A man has to be what he is
⏤Shane pic.twitter.com/4yWOGj1bbx— Cowboy Gospeler (@CowboyGospeler) October 23, 2025
12. pic.twitter.com/1oX4keEpKQ
— Wisdom (@Wisdom_HQ) October 11, 2025
Number 4 – I Googled “quote for failing a test”