Watching the Olympics with my son

I have vivid memories of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, Chuck Mangione playing in the background, watching on my parents’ RCA TV and marveling at the sports I had never heard of. I remember watching people who were the best in the world at what they do compete against the underdogs who were the best in their country at what they do.

I can remember every Olympics since then, though the last decade or so has fewer vivid memories for me. As a 20-something in law school, then a newlywed, then a new parent, watching the Olympics wasn’t high on my priority list.

But now my oldest is 4 years old, and the past hour has been a non-stop series of Wow! and Cool! and What are they doing?! He’s literally breathless – he just watched an Italian gymnast execute a flawless Iron Cross on the rings, then three Romanians in a row demonstrate amazing skill on the pommel horse. Then we watched women’s swimming. Then women’s volleyball.

While watching the voleyball match (China beat the U.S. 3 games to 1), he wanted to know where China was, so we pulled his globe out and found it on the map.

The next couple weeks are going to be a lot of fun.