Summer Olympics: Go, Canada, GO!

Today starts the Summer Olympics in London, UK.

Good luck to all the athletes out there - and especially to Corey Cogdell, our newest trapshooting friend!

We are at a trapshooting competition, I hope we will be able to watch the opening ceremony - it is a most splendid show and I wouldn't want to miss it.

In the meantime - a story about the last Winter Olympics, hosted by Vancouver in 2010.

We had the opportunity to watch the flame going by - they passed 2 streets away from our house, and on a frigid December night we fought the blistering cold to be there. It was an amazing moment, one we will remember forever. The smile on the child's face says it all!

A few days after the Olympics started, our child expressed his wish to buy one of the mascots. I tried to find out why (our house was full of plush toys, we hoard them worse than we hoard Lego!) and I was fully expecting an answer along the lines of 'X or Z has them', as I fully knew some of his colleagues brought Olympics memorabilia at school.

Imagine my complete surprise when he calmly explains he is missing something, and thus he cannot watch the Olympics properly, he needs that 'something' to be fully able to cheer the athletes and that 'something' is found in the mascots. And what could that 'something' be?!

The Olympic SPIRIT!

For a moment I am unsure if I heard him right... then I start probing - is he joking, did he hear someone saying something, or it is truly what he believes. I figure out shortly that it is what he truly believes, he feels the Olympic Spirit will be found in the cute cartoon-like plush mascots.

With such a candid answer, we get dressed and go to the mall to buy them. In his youthful innocence he chooses one of the mascots and he's ready to leave. I try to push him to buy all of them, but he replies he doesn't need them, Miga (one of the mascots) is enough to fill him of Olympic Spirit.

William and his Olympic Spirit:
Miga, Quatchi, Sumi and Mukmuk

Of course I buy him all 4 - after all the child understood the Spirit better than many adults I know!

Back home he's busy getting the 3 plush mascots plus the #1 Fan of the Olympians ready for bed, on his pillow. For minutes he tells them stories about God know what - he'll fall asleep only after I threaten to take them back to the store :) But I still hear him whispering something to Miga and his friends: Quatchi, Sumi and Mukmuk .

Interestingly enough - starting next day Canada starts winning medal after medal after medal.

Maybe we were missing the Olympic Spirit, after all!