The Olympics are now over. I can resurface. Okay, so that's not really the reason I haven't written for a while, I've just been short on fodder. Fodderless, as it were. But, today I had a sad thought.
I realized that I missed a grand opportunity to excel as a parent these past couple of weeks. You see, we let the kids watch much of the amazing Olympics opening ceremonies, but failed to do so much as debrief them on any of the competitions that happened throughout. You see, when they are awake, and the TV is on, usually it's Hannah Montana or some crap like that. Because I'm so used to simply NOT watching TV during the day, I never once thought to put the daytime coverage of the events on TV instead. and the events that unfolded in the evening occurred after their bedtimes. So our household was Phelpsless. Boltless. Completely without Costas. I know I know...Tivo....
Today while driving home from work I caught a snippet of NPR All Things Considered, the portion where they read listeners' letters. One writer commented about how he agonized over letting his kids stay up so late, but after Phelps won his awards and the kids dashed across the street to do their best imitations of him in the neighbors' pool, he realized how justified he was letting them witness these amazing events as they unfolded. Suddenly I felt guilty. Cuz I didn't.
We had Tivo'd the closing ceremonies, and as many know there was a final mens' volleyball competition against Brazil as part of that recording. I mentioned it to the kids, and we watched. Jessica (and her mother) got bored and cranky after ten minutes, but Natalie and I stared riveted (I'm a huge Vball fan anyways). By the last game Natalie was hooting and hollering and jumping on the couch. She was so completely excited to see the USA win a medal, she went to sleep singing "God Bless the USA" with a grin on her face.
Well, at least that made me feel a little better.
Good news is that her birthday party is next week, and her brilliant yet slow-thinking dad is planning an Olympics of our own in the back yard. Chocolate coins hot-glued to ribbons will serve as medals, and instead of track & Field and Swimming we'll have the Monkey & Banana race and tug 'o war. Should be fun. Stay tuned.
1 comment:
Oh, we did have 24/7 streaming Olympics in our house and while my daughter did occasionally get engrossed in something, I mostly heard this phrase, "I don' like 'lympics!!" It was worth it to hear her learn the word Olympics. In any event I have improved her vocabulary.
Post a Comment