{Fear} of the irrational kind

This year, during the summer Olympics, it was fun to see that the games finally sort of resonated with the kids. We tuned in whenever possible and Hayden would often ask who was winning the medal count. He knows Michael Phelps is a big shot, and Blake would even cheer every time he saw it turned out...except he mistakenly though Serena Williams was playing in every sport.

"Go Nina!" He would shout if he walked by and saw the Olympics on.

 

Anyway, during one of the diving competitions, the diver did a near perfect quadruple double twist back dive or something of the likes and completed it near perfect. As the scores flashed across the screen, Hayden spoke up.

“Wow! How does he do that?”

We all just sorted of nodded as if it was a rhetorical question and then Hayden continued.

“WOW! There is NO WAY I could do that!”

Finally one of us chimed in and noted that these divers practice for years to pull something like that off. Before we could finish, Hayden interrupted.

"No. I don't mean the dive. I mean how do they go into the water like that without wearing goggles? That would hurt so bad!"

Indeed, it would, Hayden. Also, can you imagine how many times they got swimmers ear?That's why I never pursued Olympic Diving.

****

Somewhat related: Once this summer when we were at the swimming pool, Hayden did an average dive off the side of the pool. It was nothing special, but I used the opportunity to pump him up and tell him how proud I was that he could dive now since I had never seen him do it before.

I mentioned nothing about the Olympics. He swam to the side, pulled off his goggles (of course!), looked up at me and said, "Look mom. I really don’t want to go to the Olympics. Okay? I just want to be an actor."

“Um. Well, okay,” I said slowly, equally as confused about his acting ambitions as his tone indicating he was devastating me by dropping out of Olympic training.

“What kind of actor do you want to be?” I asked, the natural next question.

“Pretty much just Spiderman…but MAYBE Indiana Jones too – it just depends,” he replied.

Of course it does.