Hearts are bad.
Shooting the moon is good.
This must be some kind of alternate universe, right? Wrong. It's a card game. And it's also life in general, and parenting specifically.
I play a lot of games online. I used to play online Scrabble with my sister and niece but haven't played in years. It was the only game that was interactive, now the games I play are more solitary. I've spoken candidly before about my addiction to Candy Crush, but I also play the daily challenges in Sudoku, FreeCell. And then there's Hearts. If you're not familiar with Hearts, it's actually a game you play with 3 opponents. IRL they are . . . you know . . . alive (preferably). When you play online like I do, they're computer generated, named but faceless opponents.
When it comes to games like Sudoku, you are in control. There IS a way to win, you just have to find it. It takes thought and reasoning and even, in the expert games, often trial and error, but there is a box for every number and a number for every box. If you persevere, even in the hardest of games, you can win, and I always do. There's both a life and a parenting analogy there, and I doubt I have to spell it out for you.
Same thing when I'm thinking through a new recipe. Sometimes I try it out and it's an easy win. Other times I have to come at it from another angle and try again. And maybe even a third time, but I always get there. Because the key to many tasks is often equal parts inspiration, knowledge, analysis, and perseverance.
Apple Pie Dessert Nachos
Hearts
is completely different. Hearts is a crapshoot (I know, wrong game).
In case you don't play, let me quickly explain. There's a lot more involved, but here's the gist of it: in each round, a deck of cards is dealt out evenly to the 4 players. Following the rules, 13 hands are played, a card thrown from each player in each hand. The queen of spades is the enemy, worth 13 points if you take her, and the hearts are each worth a point when taken. Since the objective is to take the fewest points, there are 26 points to be avoided per round. After each round, scores are tallied and you play the next round. The game ends when one player reaches 100 total points.
When you play Hearts, you're playing the long game. As in any game that's part luck and part strategy, sometimes you're just dealt a bad hand. And sometimes you play a hand badly. There are calculated risks that pan out, and other times that same approach can bite you in the queen of spades.
But wait, there's something else. Something big.
If it happens that you are dealt the right wrong hand, and can summon nerves of steel, you can try to shoot the moon. If you are able to take all of the points in any given hand, the queen of spades and every single heart, you've shot the moon. You not only get zero points, but everyone else gets 26 points each. Attempting to shoot the moon while not knowing who's holding which of the other cards is exceedingly risky though, you can end up with a disastrous round of 25 points. But if you get away with it, it's a huge, and very satisfying coup.
Because of this, in some hands, counterintuitive to everything you're trying to do to win this game, if you think an opponent is trying to shoot the moon, you may choose to deliberately take points in order to stop them. It's harder than you'd think, but the sacrifice can pay off.
No matter how you play it, it's not over until it's over (no singing lady required), the possibility of redemption is always on the table. 
A bad hand, even a bad round can be overcome.
We can still impact the outcome because a hand is not a whole round, and a round is not the whole game.
You can probably see where I'm going in the whole parenting analogy here. Parenting is not just one hand, it's a series. Strategy matters, as does acknowledging the need to change approach.
In hindsight it's easy, once you throw a card and it backfires, to look back and know what exactly what you should have thrown, how the outcome would have been different had you just gone with that card instead of this one.
When the boys were little, we often talked about conquering our fears. When a fear of heights threatened to cheat my son of his coveted desire to thoroughly enjoy the ride down that huge water slide, I walked him up the stairs, talking to him the whole way about what he was accomplishing. When he didn't want to get into that first car pool to kindergarten, we conquered that fear together too.
Had I shot the moon, succeeded in my strategy to make him more confident? No. Eventually I saw that I was effectively stoking his anxiety while simultaneously eroding his trust in me.
If only I could go back and throw a different card.
Lucky for us mere mortal parents, the possibility of redemption is on the table.
A bad hand, even a bad round can be overcome.
We can still impact the outcome because we've been able to accept that a hand is not a whole round, and a round is not the whole game.
My kids are grown, you know that, and although my role has changed in many ways, I'm still in the game. Because I will always be their parent, always hope and always strategize and always help.
And so we parents, both new and perpetual, thoughtfully and deliberately map out our strategy for the hearts we hold in our hands.
And we keep shooting for the moon.
Apple Pie Dessert Nachos
©www.BakingInATornado.com
Ingredients:
3 TBSP butter
4 8" flour tortillas
3 TBSP sugar
1 tsp cinnamon, divided
2 apples
1 TBSP brown sugar
1/4 cup caramel syrup
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
OPT: ice cream or whipped cream for serving
Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover 2 large sheet pans with parchment paper.
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover 2 large sheet pans with parchment paper.
*Melt the butter in a skillet. Remove from heat. Dip each of the tortillas into the butter (both sides), and stack them. Cut the stack of tortillas in half, then some of them into 3rds and some of them into quarters to create different sized triangles. Place them, not overlapping, onto the baking sheets.
*Mix 3 TBSP sugar with 1/2 tsp of the cinnamon. Sprinkle over all of the tortillas. Place in the oven and bake for 13 - 15 minutes, until they just start to brown. Remove from the oven and arrange on a serving dish.
*While the nachos are cooking, peel, core, and chop the apples.
*Place the same skillet back onto the stove over medium heat. Once the butter is hot, add the apples, brown sugar, and remaining cinnamon. Lower the heat a little and cook, stirring, until the apples start to soften, about 10 minutes.
*Spoon the apples onto the nachos on the serving dish, drizzle with caramel sauce and sprinkle with walnuts.
*OPT: top with ice cream or whipped cream for serving.
