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Olympic Fever

We had Olympic Fever in our house! I think that the boys and I watched more television in the past two weeks than we had in the past two months. What on Earth am I going to watch now?  Skiing, figure skating, luge, snowboard, bobsled, we watched it all.

Pierre and I make a point of rooting for both Canada and the United States. We’re Canucks, but we’ve lived in the U.S. for almost 10 years now. Not cheering for the U.S. would be like biting the hand that feeds us. Our boys are American, our closest friends are American, and we’re planning on getting our own U.S. citizenship pretty soon. Besides, this Olympics, I’ve been all about individual athletes, more so than the countries that they come from. Alexandre Bilodeau, Noelle Pikus-Pace, Dufour-Lapointe sisters, aerialists from China, Jamaican bobsledders…you have all made me cheer. And I really want to be besties with Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir.

With all the snow we’ve had around here, we took part in some of our own Olympic events:

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The two-person luge.

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Downhill skiing.

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More luge.

Ben can’t decide whether he wants to be a luger or skier. Both look scary to me. Don’t you think that the parents of Winter Olympians must have nerves of steel? Every event looks as though it was the result of a triple-dog-dare! Let’s barrel down a hill, slide, ice - headfirst, upside-down, doing flips - going as fast as possible. Yikes! Nicholas was all about hockey. I had to wash his hockey jersey every couple of days, he wanted to wear it so often. Finally, I just pretended that it was clean. Pierre says that’s how true hockey jerseys are made. It’s not a hockey jersey until it smells like old socks.

Now you’d think that, living in the U.S., the boys would be all about cheering for the home team. Not so.

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In fact, both were very vocal- everywhere – about loving the Canadians. It made for some, er, awkward situations.

“Boys, we cheer for both countries. Canada and the United States. Both. We love all the athletes. From both places. Go Team USA. Go Team Canada”.

Think we got the point across? Not so much.

“Mommy. We love Canada the best,” Benjamin said.

“Yep,” Nicholas agreed. “Canada is more fun.”

More fun? We have ‘lots of fun at home. Don’t we?

Then, it hit me. Canada might just be Ben and Nicholas’ happy place. Canada means seeing Grandma and Grandpa and Grand-Papa. It means Christmas and presents and Candy Cane mountain. It’s staying up late and going out for dinner and eating dessert first. Canada is about backhoes and camping and going to the water-park with Tante Val and Oncle J.F. It’s eating at Uncle Kevin’s restaurant, and raspberry picking with Auntie Jenn and Uncle Muscles. For Ben and Nicholas, going to Canada means a week or more of being spoiled rotten by each and every member of their extended family.

So yeah. Canada might be more fun.

Incidentally, the hat that Nicholas is wearing in the picture above was bought during the Vancouver Winter Games. Four years ago. When Nicholas was 9 months old. He’s making that face because his brains are being squeezed into his cheeks.

Next Olympics, we’ll get Nicholas a new hat.

xo Naomi

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