You either love watching the Olympics or you don't. It doesn't necessarily matter if you are a sports fan or not; some avid "sporties" could care less about the Olympics and are upset their regularly scheduled programs are not on.
I absolutely love watching the Olympics, both Winter and Summer. I love that every 2 years, athletes from all over the world get together in one city to compete against each other. I love rooting for the underdogs or watching the veteran athletes compete for their third straight medal. I enjoy watching each host country tell their story in the opening ceremonies, and athletes walking into the stadium, elated to be there, whether they have 200 other team members or they are the flag carrier because they are solely representing their country.
The announcers are nearly always the same and help set the mood while watching each sport. I love the background stories on particular athletes and learning about the host country from Mary Cariollo. During my bed rest, I watched the Olympics ALL DAY LONG. I learned more about badminton and table tennis than I cared to learn, but those two weeks flew by. I filled Justin in on what happened during the day and was so sad when they were all over.
So during these next two weeks the television will be on more than normal. We will tune in at 7:00 PM to watch the evening program, (hoping Bob Costas's eyes improve because it is tradition to have him anchor the evening Olympic coverage), and watch during the weekends. My normal 9:30 PM bedtime will likely be pushed back a little and I'll be sleep deprived, but in the end it's only two weeks every 2 years (alternating summer and winter). Alena has been into watching the Olympics, especially the ice skating and snowboarding. (She mostly enjoys when competitors fall). The other day while watching downhill skiing she mentioned that she wants to be in the Olympics. What a great dream AJ!
I think exposing children to all sorts of different sports is a great learning experience, even if she has to learn about them on TV.
Before we had children, Justin and I often talked about how we hoped our children would be athletic and interested in sports. We are both athletic and competed in multiple sports in high school so our 3 little ones should have good genes, right? We both enjoy watching sports so much that we can't imagine not watching our little ones compete in sports. So much can be learned from competing: The importance of team, dedication and commitment. Reliability, coach ability, and confidence come from competitive sports. It also teaches children to be resilient, cooperative and develop leadership skills. All lifelong skills that will be useful in the future.
AJ will be in her first team sport this Spring when she participates in the Urbandale Soccer program. She loves playing soccer with two twin boys at school so I think she will enjoy it. This summer she will do a gymnastics/dance combo class. It's so difficult to know how much or how little to involve your children in. You don't want to overwhelm them with multiple activities a week, yet if you don't get them involved early enough they may not have the skills they need to be competitive in high school. I grew up in a competitive high school, with over 300 in my graduating class. Nearly everyone was able to participate in sports, but only the best were on the Varsity team. Justin had a very small graduating class (less than 40) so you didn't necessarily have to be the best of the best to participate on the Varsity team. Honestly, some sports/activities were probably begging kids to participate just so they would have enough members :).
We're trying to find a happy medium with activities with Alena and will hopefully learn from her experiences to help guide us with the twins. We think it is most important that everyone learn how to swim, whether that be through organized swimming lessons or through experience they gain from swimming during the summer. I'm so excited for my little ones to start sports and hope they have fun doing it!
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