Oh there is nothing better than throwing all medical advice pertaining to screen time to the wind and sitting down to watch HOURS of Olympics with your children. Because I am a competitive person who is past her prime, I dream of my children one day becoming Olympians and being featured on a Proctor Gamble commercial with a "thank you Mom" at the end - cue misty eyes. Not only am I grooming my children for scholarship sports, but now I am also focusing on Olympic sports. Who says they can't play college football AND be a great archer?
During the Olympics moms get a big shout out from various sponsors, which we totally eat up. I love commercials about the mom washing the uniforms in Tide for 15 years and finally, wrinkled and gray, she gets to watch her daughter compete on the vault at the Olympics - all thanks to a clean uniform. It was then I realized that we are only getting some of the credit. All moms I know are actually Olympians too. We compete in a variety of sports, but I'll just name a few examples below.
Qualifying: Every athlete has to qualify for their event and moms are no different. It's called Labor and Childbirth. Nine months of carefully watched diets and weigh-ins followed by hours and hours of pain and often times stitches finally result in a baby. Good news - all of us qualified! The other news? The nurses were right. You don't get a medal for delivering naturally. No one gets a medal for qualifying - the act of labor simply means you get to compete against your peers and be judged on your performance (sound like the Olympics yet?)
Now for the actual sports...
Beach Volleyball: Ever pick up your kid from daycare or the park and take them home, only to find a sandbox in their shoes? Of course you have. Have you also not realized about the said-sandbox until you take off the shoes and the sand dumps all over the floor? Welcome to Beach Volleyball. The rest of your daily fielding of children will be spent playing in the sand. I should note that most moms I know don't play volleyball in their underwear...I mean appropriate sports-necessary bikinis.
Diving: Toddlers and preschoolers are wonderful, smart little creatures. They instantly know what is breakable AND valuable in your house and whenever you aren't looking, decide to inspect it for Antiques Roadshow themselves. Now, as a mom, if you are fortunate enough to catch your dear child BEFORE they drop the said-item, you know the running, spring-board-like jump and dive you make towards them as the precious antique/iphone slips from their hands. Did you insure the phone this time? There's no time to remember! Dive dive dive! Points are given for form and if you catch the item before it hits the floor.
Weightlifting: Isn't it funny that as children get larger, so do their necessary accessories that must follow them to every excursion? Diaper bags get heavier, potty training requires an extra 3 sets of clothes at all times, sippy cups turn into metal water bottles. And even though children get heavier, they still want to be carried through the mall (you didn't bring the stroller because it was supposed to be a quick trip.) Extra points are given for also including a shopping bag or two.
Wrestling: What do you mean you can't wear shorts in January? Your shoes are too tight (no they aren't...) Any of these complaints leads us into our next sport, wrestling. This wrestling is not determined by weight class but instead by the number of items you must dress your child in to be presentable. A special division is for children who can undress themselves while you dress them, making the task twice as long and frustrating...I mean fun.
Relay Races - of any kind: Hopefully you have a partner in crime - someone to help you with the task of raising kids. When you hear the words, "my tummy doesn't feel good" you know you have approximately 3 seconds to 1) jump out of the way while still comforting your child, 2) look for the nearest toilet and 3) grab a towel. The relay comes into play when you are holding the child, covered in puke and waiting for your partner to come running with a towel or something so you can move from the spot without making more of a mess. Personally, I have never won this race, despite having a helpful partner. But I still compete. I don't have a choice.
Hurdles: My house is never picked up. That's not true. It never STAYS picked up. At any given moment, there are blankets, football pads, toy guitars and Skylanders characters laying on the floor. And it is only when the track is full of hurdles, can you really compete. It's that moment when you hear your dear sweet boy laughing to himself in the kitchen. And then you hear him exclaim "Chemicals!" like he's found gold. You project yourself off the sofa and if successful, skillfully jump over all of the crap laying on the floor to dash into the kitchen in time to take the Soft Scrub with Bleach from his curious little hands. As in the Olympics, wiping out on the obstacles is fairly common. But unlike in the Olympics, if you don't get up quickly, you will still have your child covered in highly toxic bleach product. Moms don't get to sit down and give up. (Side note: the "chemicals" were safely stowed away in a childlocked cabinent. Just saying...)
Last but not least, Sprints: The moment you look around the store and realize that your smart little tot has taken off from you is the starting gun. You are going to make the scariest wide-eyed freaked out sprint aisle to aisle until you find him. Us other moms will look at you in sympathy and keep our eyes open for your sweetie, all the while keeping out of your path because you will run us over. This is a primal effort and I'm pretty sure if Nike was watching, you'd get a free pair of shoes and a contract.
Until we are given our own highly advertised venue with perks, we moms will have to compete in the privacy of our own homes and social circles. We don't get to mingle with young, perfectly trained specimens of the human race at the Olympic Village. But we can give each other a high five at library storytime the next time one of us sprints out of the room to run after an escapee from the craft table. We are all athletes. We've got the scars and training to prove it.
