Musings on the Olympics

My daughters love the Olympics and one of them even dresses her American Girl dolls for the occasion and keeps a count down.  She's suggested we get up to watch live the opening ceremonies. To get ready, we've watched a few Youtube clips of prior years performances in Ice Skating and Ice dancing.  She also discovered the sports channel that shows all the qualifying events and reminds us of the most recent Summer games in China.

After watching the opening ceremonies and the first few days, one of my daughters came to me and announced she wanted to train for the Olympics. "I think I could be up there Mom." she said, eyes shining.

Not wanting to burst her bubble, I tried to be gentle. "Sure, I'll sign you up for classes if you wish, but I should tell you, most of those athletes are 15-21 years of age and have been training since they were about eight." I was proud that she wanted to do this, and hopeful it wasn't beach volleyball.

She did not appreciate my tact.
"Well thanks Mom for shooting down my dream with a sniper rifle!"

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow." I thought. My Maternal ego felt bruised. "Well you know, there's an Olympic event with skiing and shooting..."I started but her face said to stop so I did and asked, "How exactly did I do this?"

"If you knew this, why didn't you sign me up then?"

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Again." Answers scrolled through my head. "Because I've always prided myself in not treating you as an extention of myself designed to manifest glory to the world. Because I believe in having children be children. Because it is expensive. Because we had lives that were full without this. Because you've shown no interest in any sport for more than the season when it is in season, because, because....because." I had all these good reasons and what did I say?

"Ummm." Don't say it Sherry. Don't rise to the bait. Darn it I'm weak.  I said, "What sport are you interested in?"  Sherry! You are an IDIOT FOR EVEN SAYING THAT SENTENCE! Me was screaming at me.

"Ice Skating."

This was before the paralyzing 7 day snow storm.  Now after two days of shoveling, she announced she was going to move to the dessert when she grew up so she'd never be cold. She also offered to do all sorts of chores inside the house so as to avoid helping with the big dig.  I could see her being signed up to skate and deciding it was too cold and I remembered, "All suffering has purpose." The snow had protected me from the charge of bad parenting for leaving her Olympic gold dreams unfulfilled. At the very least, I had a defense.  "We'll talk after I get back from working on the driveway.  You could join me, build up some Olympic muscle."

She promptly left me for the computer.

Being inside the house, my daughter researched the ages of the members of the American team.  She also googled past performances and pulled up the German Mom who was 31 and on the gymnastics team and Torres, the US woman who at 42 won the Gold in swimming.  Of course, my inside daughter printed them up and brought them out to no longer shoveling me and said "HAH! Sign me up!"

I watched as the tractor plowed the driveway and waved bye bye to the 150 dollars I'd just surrendered.  "Well, I would honey but I just payed to have the road cleared.  I might have not asked for the plowing of the driveway if more people had helped."  Okay, so I don't play fair either, the apple and the tree are very related.  Looking at the five foot drifts on either side of the driveway, she shook her head, "Hot Chocolate Mom, we can watch the ice dancing?"  Peace and good will through the Olympics had been restored, but thank goodness these events only come every 4 years.**

**Lost this piece as an Untitled Microsoft number 5 and then it was in limbo with the computer, hence the dated references.