My Obligatory (Yet Weepy) Olympic post

I'm all shades of emotional this week. Darling's turning four on Friday and I'm getting all worked up that this is the last August of her babyhood. Next August we'll be buying school supplies and backpacks and uniforms.

So what does this have to do with the Olympics? Hardly anything really.

But, if you remember, watching the 2004 Olympics (swimming, diving and softball) was how we spent the first weeks of her life.

I didn't know what else to talk to her about. The whole "Ouch, stop kicking me..." conversations were over. We were now on to "Ouch, stop biting me with your gums" as we both traversed the painful trail of breastfeeding a newborn.

We would be awake at all hours of the night. There was nothing on tv other than the re-runs of that day's events and what's a better distraction than my 3 favorite sports?

We spent hours talking about how to slide into second, the perfect form for the backstroke and how I almost broke my foot in a failed back pike off the diving board the summer I was 15.

Ya know, girl stuff.

I remember telling her these were some of the greatest athletes in the world, but maybe someday she would top their records. Or not. She could be anything she wanted to be (as long as it wasn't a drug dealer or prostitute or anything like that).

While Handsome still slumbered (he was working crazy hours while I was on maternity leave), I began the maternal bonding.

How blissful it was to let her tiny, tiny little fingers wrap around my finger, seeing her staring at everything in the world, seeming to take in every word I said (and oddly appearing to understand it.) How her breathing changed as she slipped into slumber. How she would smile (I swear she did) from even the first of her days.

(Yep, now I'm getting weepy.)

I can't wait to really sit down with her (for the two seconds she will) and try to watch swimming and diving this year. I want to make it a tradition.

We'll probably watch for approximately 5 minutes and then she'll want to watch "Curious George" or "Arthur".

I guess there's always 2012.

Maybe by then they will reinstate softball. We sort of embarrassed the rest of the world in 2004.