Watching the Olympics with my Daughter

Last night I had the opportunity to cuddle and watch the Olympics with my baby girl.  My 5 year old stayed up to watch the first 90 minutes of Olympic coverage.  There were two medal events during this time.  First was women's synchronized diving, 3 m platform.  The U.S. women took silver which we were both excited about.

The next event was the women's 100 m butterfly where Dana Vollmer of the U.S. took gold in a world record time.

I'm not sure what it is about the Olympics, but they get me excited to spend every evening for 2+ weeks watching sports that I haven't watched or paid attention to since the last Olympics 4 years prior.  Sharing that excitement with my daughter made for a great evening.  I was about her age (5) when I first remember the Olympics, although I only vaguely remember the 1984 Olympics.  The first Olympics I can clearly remember was the 1988 Olympics.  There's a big part of me that hopes my daughter develops the same excitement toward the Olympics that I have.

The other cool thing about last night's watching was that my daughter was able to observe a couple of women's events.  As I've said before on this blog, it's important to me that my daughter never feels left behind in any way because she's a girl.  Being able to watch women achieve success last night is part of the message I want her to receive.  I want her to understand that women have the same rights to be successful as men.  Lacking man "parts" should never keep her from achieving her dreams.

My daughter is already looking forward to tonight's coverage.  She asked me this morning, "Daddy, can we watch the Olympics again tonight?".  Of course we can!  :-)