Olympic Lessons

I'm sure like many people we know, Lori and I love the Olympics and most days we can be found watching the previous night's events from the DVR. This year has been especially fun since Ellie is old enough to watch and understand some of what is going on. These are some of the things we have learned about/from Ellie since the opening ceremonies on Friday night (or really Saturday morning for us early to bed folks!):

1. Ellie's favorite events are the women's gymnastics events. We have talked about enrolling her in a gymnastics class for a long time and since her love for the sport has been made obvious, her first class is now in two days! She's excited but also a little nervous I think; after watching most events, she says, "I can't do that!". We've had to explain that most people can't either!

2. There are other sports that Ellie plans to participate in. She has said that when she's older, bigger, or grown up, she'd like to do the following: fencing, diving, swimming, karate, and soccer. You may think that she is just saying that about whatever we happen to be watching but what she does not want to do is water polo and basketball. We'll try for swimming lessons next summer, karate in a couple years, and soccer starts in our township at age 4 or 5 I think. Who needs money for college - anyone want to donate to the Ellie Recreational Activity Fund?!?!

3. Ellie also wants to participate in rowing. We were watching some of the rowing events and I told Ellie that I did that all throughout college. She said that she wanted to go to college, which I agreed with her was a good idea. Then she said she wanted to go where I went and "ride in the boats with the sticks". (To my crew coach friend, Janel: I thought you'd get a kick out of that! I explained that the sticks are called oars. Now we definitely have to get up to see you for a race!)

4. Ellie has the memory of an elephant. When Michael Phelps won his first gold medal, Ellie asked who he was looking for when he was searching the stands for his mom. We explained that he was looking for his mommy because he wanted to give her a hug. When Michael Phelps was on again two days later, she asked if that was the boy who misses his mommy! (How much did you love when they won the relay race after what the French said?!?)

5. The Olympics are a wonderful time to talk with kids about goals. Even though Ellie is too little to really understand this, we have had many conversations about how hard the athletes work and how much they have to practice to achieve something like this. It has also given us the opportunity to talk about perseverance. Ellie worries when someone falls off or makes a mistake so we talk a lot about how that person made a mistake, but they got right back up and tried it again. She just says, "Try and try and try again!".

So if you're looking for us sometime during the next two weeks, you'll find us on the couch watching the primetime Olympics the next day. And be sure to watch the Olympics in 2024 to see how far Ellie makes it :-)