Did anyone else watch the Olympic Women's Gymnastics last night?? The five girls competing are the best in the entire United States. One of them, Jordyn Wieber, was heavily favored to win Olympic Gold for the Individual All-Around Final title. Unfortunately, she missed qualifying for one of the two spots. It was heartbreaking to watch her after she saw the scoreboard and knew she didn't make it. She was so upset, she started crying. I'm sure all the moms out there, and especially Jordyn's mom wanted to give her a gigantic hug and say everything is going to be okay. The last thing in the world she wanted/needed were people taking pictures of her and shoving a microphone in her face. The hours, weeks, months and years it takes to make it to the Olympics are mind boggling. It isn't part of your life, it is your entire life. Lauren did competitive gymnastics for a handful of years. She trained about nine hours a week to prepare for competitions. It didn't matter if Lauren did a perfect routine in practice a bunch of times, it only mattered what you did at the competitions. When I would sit in the stands and watch her, only one word can describe it, INTENSE! I can't even imagine what it must be like for those five girls' parents, watching their daughters fly high into the air, doing back flips and front flips, back handsprings and back tucks!! When they perform, they have to be perfect, no wobbling, no falling. SO MUCH PRESSURE!!!! I was telling Lauren that the gymnasts are all around her age. In the end, they are just teenage girls. I'm confident that once Jordyn Wieber shakes all of this off, she will be giving 200% in the coming week. Gymnastics is one of those sports that is individual, but very much a team sport. She is part of a talented group of amazing gymnasts that I'm sure will do well :) GO TEAM USA!!!
When Dominic was diagnosed with Autism at 2 1/2, I went to our local library and took out every book I could find about Autism. Sometimes I would bring back 20 books. This was 2006, so a lot of the information was very "dated." I guess I was looking for a book that would tell me what I should do next, like a "manual." Autism doesn't quite work that way! The saying is, " if you know one person with Autism, you know one person with Autism." Every mom to an individual with Autism follows their own "path." I think as moms, we judge ourselves much harder than anyone else does. I was 41 when I had Dominic. Did he get the diagnosis of Autism because I was an older mom? because I drank a lot of pop? I could sit and think about that every minute of every day. I am pretty integrated into the Autism community around Lansing and have told more than one person that it took me about two weeks to come to terms with Dominic's diagnosis. It is so incredib...
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