Olympics through my child’s eyes

“I want to do that!” is the battle cry in our house during the XXX Olympic Summer Games in London.

My son, Nico, 4, has been super active since he was in the womb (believe me, I felt it). He rolled over the day he was born, climbed out of his crib at about 15-16 months, and has been playing tennis and soccer since he was old enough to stand up (my husband had him hitting tennis balls off a baseball tee with his little racket.) The sports bug has definitely been flying through his system his whole life.

Nico, my soccer star!

So now, with the vast range of Olympic events on TV everyday, he is exposed to so many sports and wants to play them all!

I’ve asked him several times which is his favorite sport, and he sternly states, “All of them!”

Of course this posed a bit of a problem when we turned on the Olympics one day and saw boxing. I couldn’t grab the remote fast enough! The last thing I need is Nico to start punching people and justify it as the sport of boxing! It is bad enough he plays rough with our dog, Vito, who ironically is a Boxer.

I explained the sport briefly and how the athletes were trained for it and wore special equipment. Then I hoped he would forget about it and turn his attention back to swimming or water polo.

No such luck, though, because when Daddy got home from work, Nico announced to my husband, “Daddy! There’s a new sport called boxing!” You can imagine the stare I got from my husband on that one LOL!

Aside from the sports and activity, Nico has also been learning so much about all of the different countries of the world, too. We keep track of the medal counts for everyone. Hearing him pronounce the names of the countries and athletes he reads on the TV screen is so cute. He does a better job than Daddy!

For every event he asks, “Who do we want to win?” Of course we cheer for Team USA, but we love watching competitors from all over the world. It is showing him good sportsmanship and hopefully preventing him from gaining any type of prejudice.

So as we continue to watch the games and cheer on the athletes, I hope my son will keep the innocence in his eyes:  If you work hard to achieve your dreams, they will come true … and that the people of the world get along and cheer for each other.

I just hope he doesn’t see sumo wrestling, though. No offense to the wrestlers, but I finally got this kid out of diapers!