As I wrote when the Olympics began, we love the Olympics in our house, even though our kids don’t really watch TV. It’s sports, it’s international education, it’s diversity, it’s a beautiful thing.

Here are the Olympics updates from my perspective:

1. Swim, baby, swim! My older son (and my younger one for that matter) are very cautious in general. Gentle and cautious. They take their time. Last to crawl, last to walk, last to talk, last to go in a bouncy castle, last to blah blah blah. Since I don’t believe in swim lessons (I mean, I believe they exist but I don’t partake), our kid has taken his time swimming. We teach him slowly and let him take strides when he’s ready. I’ve been trying all summer to teach him to dive. Slowly, gently, from a crouched position from the side of a pool. But he’s scared and he giggles and screams excitedly, “NO MAMA!” and I keep trying and then get mildly annoyed because he’s so close to doing it but he won’t do it. Read the rest of this entry →

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British Olympian, Louis Smith.

Four years ago, my older son was almost 3 and that summer, I let him watch TV for the first time. He got to watch two things: a video from our midwife’s office called “The Birth Train,” which helped him prepare for the home birth of his baby brother, and The Olympics. Now that he is almost 7 and my younger son is almost 4, we are happily watching as much of the Olympics as we can. Our sons call the Olympics the “Plink Plinks” because that’s how my older son pronounced it four years ago. We fast-forward commercials because we don’t like our boys watching commercials (and most of them scare my little guy), and we keep the remote close by, since, for example, the 40 foot Voldemort scared my little guy and I think my husband a little bit, too. Read the rest of this entry →

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