The wonder of Preschool Olympics

Recently, I finally got to attend an event related to my work at the magazine and let me tell you, I had a blast. 

 

It was a tremendous privilege to attend the Preschool Olympics. On Friday morning, I woke up early to beat the morning traffic heading to Boulder, where I stopped at the Boulder Country Day School which has  the students from PreK through eighth grade. 

 

I was there to talk with the director of marketing, who had invited me to attend. As I waited for her, I watched as a teacher opened the door for students and greeted each by name.

As we walked to the gym, the director was constantly engaged in conversations with parents and other teachers as we passed. It was like a little family the way the community felt so close, and I found it very endearing. It reminded me of my time at Sacred Heart. 

 

After asking the director questions about the Preschool Olympics, I took my seat in the gym and waited for the event to start. I watched as parents and grandparents filtered into the gym to find the best spots to capture their little one’s athletic feats. 

 

The Preschool Olympics was exactly what it sounds like. A handful of preschool classes dressed in different colored team t-shirts and wearing the flag of their country (hand colored, mind you) came in as a procession. The opening ceremonies featured a lot of waving children whose faces lit up once they saw mom or dad in the crowd. A few had to be carried in or hold the hand of their teacher. I get it–opening ceremony is scary in front of so many people. 

 

Then the games began. First was the relay, where kids ran to one end of the gym and back, tagging in the next person on their team. They were adorably cute as they ran.

Especially when the younger preschoolers gave up racing and proceeded to play tag in the middle of the relay. 

 

Then came another relay, but with a hurdle involved. After that was soccer, volleyball, a “marathon,” and basket racing, and breakdancing. For breakdancing, they laid out gym mats in a circle, and a seventh grade student came out to “compete” against them. He actually knew how to breakdance and the entire gym was impressed as he proceeded to spin on his head and do funky breakdance moves. Then it was the preschoolers’ turn; they wiggled and moved their legs in a circle and put their head down and honestly got pretty close to breakdancing. 

 

In the end, every preschooler lined up and was given a gold medal by the eighth graders, who were passing down their legacy from when they once participated in the Preschool Olympics. 

 

It was very sweet, and the whole atmosphere made me wish for a school like that for the kids I hope to have one day. But as a mom dropped a giant Versace bag in the seat next me, I realized I should maybe dream a little smaller. My kids can take the bus to public school as I did and become great human beings. I just hope they won’t have to do as my boyfriend did and take the public city bus to school with, as he claims, “the crackheads.” 

 

That is far into the future, so I will be happy to sort through photos of cute kids and their athletic feats and write a story appreciating community and growth until then. 

 

My Determination: "If you want to survive, you need to laugh at weird things. Especially things like this." — Tina Belcher, Bob’s Burgers