You May Be Obsessed With the Olympics if ...

I'm pretty certain that most first-time parents will agree with me that for a couple of weeks after your baby arrives, you can barely take your eyes off of that little screaming, pooping, wiggling little human. I mean seriously, it's hard to look away from that adorable face even for a moment, isn't it? Unless, of course, your first child just happens to make his entrance into the world at the same time as the summer Olympics are taking place in Los Angeles and you spend a couple of weeks at your mom's house and have a television in the bedroom. Go ahead and say it ... I'm a terrible mother because I didn't spend every waking moment staring at my firstborn son in the first couple of weeks of his life ... sorry, Mattie. Before you judge me too terribly harshly, let me assure you that I didn't ignore my  beloved baby boy, I just alternated between looking at him and looking at the athletes who were competing in the Olympic games.

It doesn't make sense to me that I enjoy watching the Olympics as much as I do because I just don't watch sports on television. Well, I did watch some of the World Series games last year because I was afraid I'd get kicked out of Kansas City if I didn't ... you know, go Royals and all that stuff. Heck, I'll watch some totally sappy movie on Lifetime before I'll watch sports on TV, but when it comes to the Olympics ... well, that's an entirely different ball game. Yes, you should be laughing out loud at what I did there ... I don't like to watch sports on television but the Olympics is an entirely different ball game ... get it? I'm sitting here cracking up at my cleverness, which totally means that you should be, too. But I digress ... back to what I was saying about watching the Olympics on TV. I've done a lot of that since Friday evening's opening ceremony ... watched the Olympics, that is ... and after what happened when I mowed my yard this evening, I think I may possibly have to admit that my obsession with the Olympics might be just a tad bit out of control.

I'm not quite sure what possessed me to do so, but when I pushed the lawnmower out of my garage, I decided that I was going to set a new record time for how long it took me to mow the yard. I even went back inside and got my phone so that I could set the stopwatch to accurately time myself down to the second. And as I filled the mower tank with gas, I said out loud, "And now competing for the U.S. in the lawn mowing event is Terrie Johnson. She holds the world record in this event at 45 minutes 13 seconds. No one has ever come close to that time so it will be interesting to see if she can actually break the record she set in 2014." Yep ... I know ... just one more feather to toss in the "Terrie really is crazy" bucket. But you know what? I mowed the yard tonight in a record-shattering 42 minutes 51 seconds, so there.

Seriously though ... the real reason I love watching the Olympics has absolutely nothing to do with the events the athletes are competing in and absolutely everything to do with the athletes themselves. It's their stories ... the swimmer with Crohn's disease ... the gymnast who was told he would never walk again ... every single member of the first Refugee Olympic Team ... the athletes themselves are the reason I watch the Olympics. To see the sacrifices so many of them have made and the discipline they possess to push themselves beyond what most of us would consider humanly possible is truly inspirational to me. Watching the athletes pursue their dreams makes me hope ... even if it's only for a moment ... watching the dreams they have chased for so long come true makes me hope that maybe, just maybe, it's not too late for one or two of my own dreams to come true, too.

"Unbelievable! Terrie Johnson has broken her own lawn mowing world record with a time of 42:51 ... we didn't think it was possible but she did it!"

And the crowd of squirrels and rabbits and my faithful wiener dog go wild ...