Were any of you glued to the TV set over the weekend watching the Olympics? Ice and snow are truly exotic to our children, so we all relished the skating and skiing.

We loved watching the Italians capture the gold medal in last night’s cross-country event. The Detroit Free Press describes Giorgio di Centa’s victory with this great sentence: “The horde of Italian fans lingered, savoring one last moment of Olympic triumph.” (I love the words linger and savor, don’t you?)

Yet I had this strange realization as I watched the dazzling figure skaters while humbly wiping down crumb-covered countertops. It finally sank in that I will NEVER be in the Olympics! It’s too late — I’m not good at any sport and now I’m too old! I mulled over that idea for a while as I watched the athletes experience their lifetime moment of glory.

You see, when I was growing up, I just knew that I was bound for the Olympics. It wasn’t a matter of IF; it was a matter of WHEN! I was quite serious about gymnastics when I was in elementary and middle school, and my teammates and I all had Olympic aspirations. In fact, we figured there would be some year in the 80s when the whole Olympic team would be our squad!

I turned in school homework assignments covered in Olympic-ringed doodles. My friends and I made medals and certificates for each other: Gold Medals on the Balance Beam and Floor, Silver on the Bars, and Bronze on the Vault (never was very good at that.) Those were my childhood dreams!

But just as I was feeling a bit disappointed, I happened to visit one of my favorite blogs, Simplifying Motherhood, written by Trish Berg. She’s come up with a whole new set of Olympic sporting events in which participants must all be moms. One new event she proposes will be “The Laundry Marathon:”

Each participant will be given twenty-four hours and two tons of dirty, stained clothes, unsorted. Their goal will be to sort, wash, dry and fold as many loads of laundry as they can in one twenty-four hour period. The winner is the mom who finishes the most laundry by tonnage, and who can still see straight.

I’m in training for that one now, as well as another Olympic-worthy thrill, “The Speed Shopping Commute:”

Each mom will be given four obnoxious kids (not hers of course), all under eight years old. She will have to load them into the minivan, head to the grocery store, and buy everything on her shopping list. Then, she has to get the kids and the groceries back into the house safely while walking on a sheet of ice in her driveway. Points will be deducted for every bag of M & M’s she gives the kids to keep them quiet at the store, and for slipping on the ice.

You’ll have to visit Trish’s site to read the rest of her hilarious post, The Motherhood Olympics. And while you’re there, stop in to say hello! Trish is an expert at making me feel better about myself, about mothering, and about life.

P.S. I gotta thank Kelsey at Holy Mama! for my new Bible Promise graphic in my sidebar. I followed the link from her site and discovered that I’m known as a “webmaster.” Someone has made it simple for you to add a customized daily scripture box to your site. My daughters helped me pick out the colors — although of course they wanted bright magenta and violet (sorry — didn’t look good on my site). The fun thing is that the scripture changes every day! And I don’t even have to do anything! Thanks, Holy Mama!