Thursday, August 14, 2008

Role Models

Recently it has dawned on me that Jr. loves and follows role models. This, of course, can present its own set of challenges depending on who he chooses as a role model. For example, he liked Darth Vader more than Luke Skywalker when we watched Star Wars. He also loves Captain Jack Sparrow, but has a hard time reconciling the fact that Captain Jack drinks rum (although stabbing people with a sword doesn’t seem to bother him). More recently, however, he’s been choosing other role models like Superman, Batman, or Spiderman, which do good things and help people. His latest role model has proven to be the most beneficial. Yesterday, he decided that he wanted to swim like Michael Phelps.

We have been watching the Olympics as much as we possibly can, even if that means not going to bed until after 1:00 am. I have never watched a lot of sports on TV, and much to the chagrin of many of my friends, find watching sports to be a waste of time. My philosophy is that I would rather be out playing sports than watching them. Anyway, Jr. has been watching the Olympics with us (although he does go to bed before 1:00 am). He has been watching the swimming competitions and I have been explaining to him who the different swimmers are, etc. A few days ago he learned about Michael Phelps and loves to watch him swim.

Yesterday, M decided to take the kids to the pool. Jr., on his own, decided that he wanted to swim like Michael Phelps. Jr. has been in swimming lessons and had learned the basics. He has been swimming pretty well, but there were still of number of things that he was working on. By deciding that he wanted to be like Michael Phelps, all of that changed. I skipped out of work a little early to meet the family at the pool and I was amazed at the difference in his swimming ability. I could not believe how well Jr. could swim and what’s more is that the kid is only 4 years old. I would tell him to use his “Michael Phelps” arms and kick his “Michael Phelps” legs and he would easily do the crawl stroke or float on his back 15 feet. I’m proud of the boy. I guess the next thing is to let him watch the 2010 Winter Olympics and find a skier to be his next role model.

2 comments:

Michelle said...

We also have been GLUED to the boob tube, which for the past 2 nights means going to bed at 1am or 2am...but how can you NOT celebrate in these once-in-a-lifetime events. Not only that, but hey, we feel we have something to share since we've actually been to Beijing too! Anyway, keep encouraging the boy to swim...you never know what kind of talent might emerge!

Brittany said...

hi. this is brittany, wyatt wilson's (greg's coworker) wife. i've been reading your blog for the last month or so. and i was going to keep it a secret but i couldn't help but comment about your previous post. i agree, i love the way carpet looks after it is newly vacuumed! wyatt doesn't understand it. and it kind of stinks because i can only vacuum when he's not home because if he's around when i do, it makes him grumpy. we decided against the dyson because it was too spendy for us. however, i regret that we passed it up for a wanna-be dyson. we got a shark infinity instead and it is currently on it's way to get repaired at HQ as i write this. lame. that means i have to go 6-8 weeks without a vacuum! i think i'm going to go crazy! thanks for the great post! i'll probably go back to secretly reading your blog now. :)