Every four years the event comes around and I am hooked. My addictive personality kicks into full gear and my obsessive little competitive soul gets the nourishment it craves.
That's right. For 16 days my ass rarely leaves the couch during the evening hours.
I suck up all the statistics and devour all the back stories.
"For crying out loud," I'll say to an empty living room, since the kids aren't nearly as enticed as I am, and have long disappeared from my view. "That poor girl was a REFUGEE and swam three hours to GREECE to flee to safety. Now she's competing in the Olympics. Can you even believe it?"
Silence.
"Hey, did you guys know Michael Phelps arm length spans 80 inches from finger tip to finger tip?"
Crickets.
I know they're all just biding their time until this whole thing is over and their mother returns to "normal."
I'm pretty sure they haven't had anything more than a Hot Pocket for dinner since opening ceremonies. Whatever. They're still better off than that poor Syrian swimmer when she was in the refugee camp.
Now my latest fascination has been the women's 4 x 100 relay race. The determination, the importance of the hand-off, the do-over, the finish...
Makes me think of the stages of parenting.
All the stages, all the roles, all the sprints - they're all important.
Your first stage- the beginning position... that's like when the gun goes off in the race and the baby is born. You're just running like crazy, especially if you're a first time parent. You're not even sure if you're doing it right, you just know you have to survive. You have to survive the sleepless nights, the endless worries. "Lord, Jesus," you think to yourself. "Just let me get through this and get to a stage where this baby is sleeping through the night and I have time to shave my legs again."
Then comes the second position. In relay races, this is often the fastest sprinter. And in parenting, this strategy makes sense. Because as a parent you're always sprinting to get things done in this stage - you're running them to school, you're racing them to activities, you're always on the go, go, go. You think this stage of your life will never end. You look at couples who don't have young children and practically go insane with envy.
There are some race theories that state the worst runner is in the third position of a relay. I don't like the term "worst." I think that runner may not run as fast as the others, but they're just as important. Just like when the third stage of parenting starts. As a mom, I may not be sprinting as fast as I was earlier, but my work is just as important. I have to continue with the baton, and keep racing toward the hand-off. Now I have to make sure my kids have the all-important life skills necessary to continue on their own leg of the race. While I'm still running around and making sure their basic needs are being met, I'm now trying to install a sense of pride, hard work and social responsibility into their incredible little personalities. I'm still running in this third position, determined to do my role on this relay team. But it's tiring, all this running. You still want to make sure you're doing your part so they can win this race.
And one of the most physically and emotionally exhausting things you can do in the parenting relay is when you finally reach the next runner's extended hand, and hand off the baton of responsibilities. In this case, the next runner is your teenager. You watch them sprint off, the so-called "best runner", and take off at an unbelievable speed toward their future. You're wiped out, bent over with your hands on your knees, watching them.
Finally you stand straight, take a deep breath and yell after them, "Now go win this bitch!"
