Yesterday Kevin, Jocie, Livie and I headed to Indiana to visit my parents. This morning all of us, including my parents, played a game of Aggravation.

At family gatherings, I have heard Kevin and other spouses who are married to my family members talk about The Smith Gene. (This is a not so subtle code phrase for my spouse is an extremely competitive game player) Well, I got to see The Smith Gene in action today! As we began the game, at first it wasn’t apparent. Then Livie rolled the dice and had two options:

1. move her first marble ahead
2. move her second marble and send her daddy’s marble back to base

With a grin from ear to ear, she chose option #2. Kevin looked at me like “See? She’s got the gene too!“. I smiled back and thought to myself “That’s my girl!” My parents and Jocie cheered Livie on and the game continued. Time and time again I saw instances of competitiveness from both girls, myself and my parents. Kevin, being the good sport he is endured all of us and even sent a few of us back to base at times. Livie ended up winning the game, but I suspect that only happened because she had 3 adults strategizing for her! All of us experienced laughter and smiles as we played the game.

Seeing The Smith Gene in action, I have drawn several conclusions:

• competitiveness can be fun, even for those who tend not to be competitive
• wanting to win is something all of us desire, even for those who don’t classify themselves as competitive
• how we handle not winning reveals a whole lot about our character - everyone cheered for Livie, even big sis Jocie
• The Smith Gene isn’t really a gene, after all my mom married into the family and she seems to have The Smith Gene
• we are going to need to get Aggravation for our home - our girls loved it