Dear Kid,

Do you like your College Life?

Yes mom. I like my college life.

Do you like to crew a boat?
Do you like to feed a goat?

Yes, I like to crew a boat
but Mama, we don’t have a goat.*

Do you ride your bike to class?
Or do you sit upon your butt?

I ride my bike from here to there,
I ride my bike most everywhere.
I really like to crew a boat,
and when it’s cold, I wear my coat.

Do you get your homework done
or are you having too much fun?
Did you take a quiz today?
Did you pass it anyway?

Would you? Could you? read a book?
Would you? Could you? take a look?

Yes, Mom, I can read a book
and at my notes, I’ll take a look.
I did not have a quiz today,
but I’d have passed it anyway.
And I can study here or there,
Yes, I can study anywhere.

Is your laundry three weeks old?
Is your pizza getting cold?

My laundry isn’t three weeks old, my pizza rarely gets too cold,
I wear a coat to keep me warm,
I take umbrellas in a storm
I eat my breakfast and my lunch
My friends are nice, a real cool bunch.

I’m doing fine, I’m doing well,
And that is all there is to tell.

So please Mom, while I love this stuff
You have to know, enough’s enough.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Love, Mom

*Tune in tomorrow for an explanation of the the goat.

Dear Kid,

I think we’re suffering from Olympic Fatigue. After two weeks of the Games, our interest in All Things Winter has faded. Some of us (me) faded earlier than others of us (Dad). You really have to love things like curling to watch two weeks’ worth of chess-on-ice.

By the time the Closing Ceremonies came around, we decided to watch a movie instead. Which may have been a mistake because we saw the last few minutes of the Ceremonies and it seemed pretty cool.

FACT: The US has never won a medal on each day of the winter games. Unlike some commentators, I do not find this fundamentally problematic.

Despite all the warnings of potential catastrophes that never occurred (bombs and other acts of terrorism) and a few that did (missing yogurt and the US’s opening ceremonies outfits), the Olympics were an Absolute Success.

We cheered for our own athletes and we cheered for other countries’ athletes. We had the requisite number of unanticipated victories and unimaginable heartbreak. We had unknown athletes win gold and those on their last Games win glory. We had commentary that was great and some that was less so. We had clear victories and a few controversies.

Mostly, we had two weeks of great Olympics doing what Olympics are supposed to do—bring athletes together from around the world and make the universe a little bit smaller.

Dasvidaniya, Sochi

Love, Mom

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Dear Kid,

Once upon a time, Russians played a lot of hockey in the Olympics. More to the point, they won a lot of hockey in the Olympics. Even more to the point, they won pretty much all the hockey in the Olympics.

Then there were a bunch of boys from Boston University (yay), and a bunch from Minnesota, and several from other places who knew how to play hockey. And there was a hockey coach who seriously knew how to coach that bunch of boys.

And there was a sportscaster who knew how to make the most out of a fabulously dramatic moment.

“11 seconds, you’ve got 10 seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk. Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles?! YES!–Al Michaels

On February 22, 1980, the USA made history in Lake Placid by beating the Soviet hockey team 4-3.

On March 3, 1890, the cover of Sports Illustrated featured a photo of the team celebrating after the win. There was no headline, no caption, because “Everyone in America knew what happened”.

<Tweet>. Again. Go USA!

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

My friend the library let me down. In case you’re not sure, the library is kind of like the internet except you have to travel to get there. I grabbed a book at the library the other day called The Book of Olympic Lists which is totally misnamed. It should be called the Book of Summer Olympic Lists Completely Ignoring All Winter Sports.

So I have now turned to my friend the internet to help round out my research.

It is still true that sometimes over the years host countries have added interesting unusual weird sports to the Olympics (like Tug of War and Obstacle Swimming). I can now add Interesting and Unusual Winter Sports for your reading enjoyment. I am not making any of this up.

In 1932 (Lake Placid), one of the sports was a dog sled race. Actually, there were two races on the 25.1 mile course. Only Canada and the US participated since dogs from other parts of the world decided they’d rather curl up in front of a nice cozy fire. This was the first recorded time in Olympic history of athletes using less-than-private “facilities.” So Sochi is just revisiting communal potties.

Moving straight ahead, or at least straight down, the Albertville Olympics (1992) showcased speed skiing. The point of speed skiing is to hit the fastest speed you possibly can (think clocking a baseball pitch). Speed skiers regularly exceed 200 km/h (125 mph), which is even faster than a free-falling skydiver (about 190 km/h; 120 mph). The Frenchman who won in Albertville reached 229 k/hr. This is a very dangerous sport (people have died) and is not nearly as interesting to watch as it sounds like it should be, so we’ll keep it on the “nevermind” list.

The best named sport I could find is skijoring (which I will leave to others to pronounce correctly). Basically, skijoring combines skiing with dogsleding. The human wears skis and a harness to which a dog (or three) is/are attached. There are no reins so you have to hope your dog is very motivated to get moving and that you have trained your dog to respond to your voice commands even when that pup can’t see an immediate incentive to do so. Skijoring was in the Games in 1928 (St. Moritz) where the skiers were pulled by horses (which made it more like combining skiing with a Budweiser commercial). Also, they held the race on a frozen lake. Which is odd because frozen lakes are flat and part of the fun is going over bumps and jumps. Or so I’ve been led to understand.

The other oddly named sport is skeleton (which of course has nothing to do with Halloween or underfed athletes). Men’s skeleton first appeared in the Olympics in 1928 (still St. Moritz). Then everyone forgot about it until the Olympics went back there in 1948 and they tried it once again (once being the operative word). In 2002 (Salt Lake) men’s and women’s skeleton became part of the regular Olympic lineup. In my opinion, extra points should be given for really cool helmets.

Hoping your Olympic lineup includes studying of epic proportions.

Love, Mom

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Dear Kid,

Once upon a time, when the modern Olympics were in their infancy, the games were not nearly as regulated as they are now (except for the bathrooms, which apparently are still fairly unregulated). In those days, hosting nations were free to make up invent include some lesser known sports in the competition (this is true).

• In 1896 there was an event (100 meter freestyle swimming) that was only open to members of the Greek navy. That level of specificity may be going a bit too far but the Greek navy participants seemed pretty happy about it. All three of them who entered the race anyway.

• This was followed in 1900 by the Swimming Obstacle Race. Competitors had to climb over a pole, get over a row of boats, then swim under another row of boats. While this now reeks of various made-for-TV competitions, I think this is the type of event that would be a marvelous addition to Olympic fun. And I wouldn’t even need a commentator to explain it to me.

• That year the Tug of War also made its Olympic debut. It was so popular they kept it in the games for 5 Olympics, but they changed the rules each time (just for fun and international controversy). Again, a winner in my opinion.

It seems to me that random events like these would add a great deal of fun and surprise to the games and I am considering starting a petition to bring back the events that would only be interesting once every four years. Kind of like curling, but without even that much practice. Being the kind of mom I am, I have thoughtfully come up with a few options for the IOC to add to the next Winter Olympics.

Snowman building competition. (Apologies to anyone who is offended by “snowman”. It seemed like a better use of language than “snowbeing”.) This will be a timed event (3 hour limit) judged (by a group of extremely knowledgeable kindergarteners) based on size, design, use of snow, and snacks served to the judges.

Obstacle speed skating. This long track style race includes slightly tipsy spectators on the ice (in skates) who are simultaneously competing for Best All Around Amateur skater.

Skate jumping. Not like the pairs kind. More of a combo of snow cross and speed skating. Cool, huh?

Cross Country tug of war. Teams compete elimination style in a tug of war with all competitors on classic cross country skis.

Ski Dancing. Either cross country or freestyle skis. Any combination of two skiers allows (HA, Mr. Putin). Future sports to include snowboard dancing.

Driveway shoveling. Open only those who hand-shovel. Style points for tossing snow and grumbling about the polar vortex. The Americans from the Northeast are heavily favored given their expertise with the white stuff.

Polar Bear Plunge. This is popular enough to make it official. We could add interest by including real polar bears. Hungry ones.

What are your ideas for new Olympic sports?

Love, Mom

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Dear Kid,

I have kept an open mind, and I am happy to report I don’t hate the team ice skating competition. (I’m sure you’re greatly relieved.) In some ways it is unfortunate weird odd to have competitors skating programs when they know their team can’t possibly win a medal. But that’s part of the Olympics. There are a lot of competitors in many events who are competing for the joy of being an Olympian (can you say Jamaican bobsled team? Or American biathloners? bialethetes? skiers and shooters.).

The Russians won the team competition quite handily (followed by Canada and the US).

Canada didn’t win any of the team ice skating events, but because they were so strong overall they won silver. So that’s pretty cool about the team stuff.

The US ice dancers Charlie White and Meryl Davis rocked (and by “rocked” I mean were completely awesome and won both of their events). Almost as importantly, their moms rock so yay for a shout out to sports moms. The US won bronze (way to go dudes).

The big star from the team competition is 15-year-old Russian skater Yulia Lipnitskaya. She won the short and long program and not only is she adorable, she is 15 kinds of talented. Watching her spin was breathtaking.

In case you’ve been doing something useful like studying, I should probably let you know that this might be the Sibling Olympics. You may have heard that there were three Canadian sisters competing in moguls. The Canadian Dufour-Lapointe sisters won gold and silver (the third sister did not medal). The Mulder twins dominated in the 500 speed skating. (They came in 1^st and 3^rd with a fellow team member coming in 2^nd for a Dutch podium sweep). There’s also a really nice story about Canadians Frederic and Alex Bilodeau. Alex successfully defended his gold in men’s moguls. Frederic is his older brother who has cerebral palsy and is Alex’s inspiration. They both became huge stars in Canada after the Vancouver Olympics and have raised serious money for cerebral palsy research. Lovely story.

A final (probably) word on the US costumes from the opening ceremony. Your sister (who is often as snarky as I am about these things) had a very insightful point of view. It didn’t bother her at all that the uniforms were awful (she didn’t argue that point). She just thought it was great that all the athletes were awful together. “It doesn’t matter that they’re bad. You can walk around in that and everyone will know you’re a US Olympian. How cool is that?”

She’s right.

Love, Mom

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