Woo0ps. There went a month in blog-land. Sorry about that. I’ve had numerous posts composed in my head, and never managed to write them… So, here is a random smattering of thoughts for you…
Olympics. Oh, wow. That is one way to turn my family of rather active people into a bunch of couch potatoes, ironically. My daughter was learning about the Olympics in school, and was very excited to watch them. I was very excited to watch swimming, and hoping that seeing the Olympic swimmers would inspire her. I made sure to show her the interviews with Missy Franklin, who is tall, strong, and with such a lovely personality. I think my daughter will be somewhere near the height of Missy Franklin, so I wanted her to see how good height could be for a girl.
But what did my daughter latch onto? Women’s gymnastics. Now, I don’t have anything against this sport, but those girls are TINY. The women in our family are not tiny. I even searched online for the “tallest Olympic gymnast woman”, and the answer was 5’5″. We estimate that she’ll be about 6’1″.
So we had conversations about how she will be tall, and she should try sports where height will be an asset. “Want to watch volleyball?” “Hey, look, Missy Franklin won another gold medal!”
But she is still set on gymnastics. So, next week, she is doing a trial class of gymnastics. My mother giggled at this whole story, as I had a similar fascination when I was little, and as my mom said, I need to let her figure out if it is the right sport for her. I’m betting it’s not, but I’ll just keep my mouth shut and let her figure it out for herself.
But, I made a deal with her – that if I was going to pay for gymnastics this school year that she’d agree to do swim team next summer. She agreed, so I guess we have a compromise. (How I’m going to get her to 2x/week swim practices at 5pm when I’m supposed to work until 5pm is something I have to figure out before then.)
Plus, the gymnastics school has a class for my son’s age group at the same time, so instead of trying to keep him occupied in a tiny waiting room, I’ll scoot him right into class, too. That should be good for some entertainment!
And on a side note of the Olympics, I just love watching swimming. I love watching the new techniques, the new suits, the new technology in caps/goggles, etc, and reminiscing on my days as a swimmer. I’m so happy to see the sport get elevated status, and I totally idolize many of the swimmers on the men’s and women’s team.
Oh, and will someone please make a US men’s swim team calendar so that I can put that on my Christmas list?
Here is a picture of the next generation’s Missy Franklin and Michael Phelps.
On Biking…
Our son has had a strider bike since Christmas, and he is a real pro at it. He does stunts, hops curbs, and can totally keep up with his sister on that thing. We bought him a bike with pedals a few months ago, and promptly took off the training wheels, as he knows how to balance. Well, he had some mental block about pedals, and avoided that bike for what seemed like the longest time.
Then, one day a few weeks ago, I look out in the backyard, and he had just hopped on his pedal bike (known in our house as the Rocket bike, as it says Rocket on the frame), and he is biking around using pedals like it was no big deal. This happened the week after his third birthday.
We upgraded our daughter’s bike in the early summer as well. We got her a mountain bike with gears and hand brakes, that is a bit big for her, but at the rate she’s growing, we decided that was the best choice. Anyway, many nights you’ll find our family biking at the church parking lot in our neighborhood, racing eachother and coming up with different obstacle courses. It is so fun. I looked at my son the other day as we were biking next to eachother, and couldn’t believe that just three years ago he was a helpless newborn, and now he is a little boy that can ride bikes with me and share the funniest thoughts.
On Growing Up…
I put my daughter on a plane this week by herself. She flew to the Bay Area to spend the week with her grandparents and aunt. My six year old was excited and not at all afraid to march onto that plane without me. It was the strangest feeling to watch the plane pull back from the gate. I couldn’t help thinking about how recent it seemed that traveling with her was a big ordeal, and now I can just plop her on a plane. They say that time moves fast when you’re a parent, and I would have to agree.
Those are my thoughts for the day… Please don’t give up on me and my little blog! A few more random pics from our summer below.
Little Man being tossed in the air by his dad:
My daughter doing the bungee trampoline at Mammoth ski resort last month:
