Kid Olympics

Let's just start by being honest: I did not want to do this.

When I asked the kids what they wanted on our summer bucket list this year, Rex wanted Kid Olympics.  I tried to mildly discourage him--it's not an Olympic year, isn't there anything else you can think of that you'd rather do?  No and no.  Kid Olympics made the list.  And I grumbled.

First Alice and Rex went crazy with all the events--Alice was going to run the gymnastics events on the Wheatley's trampoline while Rex did the swimming events and there would also be track events.  It was going to be crazy.  This nonsense had to be reined it.

We started by picking a date (Thursday the 13th).  I showed Rex how to make an evite and we made a guest list.  Then we discussed the age of the people he invited (11 and under) and narrowed our events to a number and type that would suit our audience.  I also insisted that all events take place in our backyard since Becky wasn't planning this event.  We ended up with 11 kids, not including Zora, who napped through most of it.

Then I gave Rex a $40 budget to buy all his supplies and lunch since this would be from 11 to 2 in the afternoon.  He picked pizza and ice cream cones.  He wanted to get soda and really cool prizes but that didn't fit in his budget and he was unwilling to give up the ice cream cones (I told him popsicles would be much more inexpensive).  As we were shopping a few days before the event, he looked at some soda longingly and said, "This is teaching me a lot about money."  I gave myself a pat on the back.

The day of the event arrived and Rex really wanted to mess around with Alice and Henry while I set up, but I made him come outside and get all the events ready.  Maybe he'll appreciate the stress I go through when I put on parties more.  But probably not.

Rex helped make these signs for each event to mark the location and set out the rules.

Then I left him home with sleeping Zora while I ran to pick up the pizza.

Did I mention we also got our house re-roofed that day? So we also had shingles flying everywhere and I stepped on a nail.  Rex didn't seem to mind so we moved on.

He friends arrived; we ate pizza; then he announced how to play all the games.  I broke the kids into two teams to help move things along and we were off.  Luckily a few parents hung around to help keep score, which didn't really matter in the end since we didn't do anything with the score, but it seemed like the thing we should do.  After the first five events, we broke for ice cream then headed to the Wheatley's pool for a diving competition and just for swimming (it was hotter than Hades).

$5 pizza, cantaloupe, watermelon and water on real plates for lunch (budget did not allow for paper plates)

Rex didn't think any of the teams should get to be the US, so he picked China and Japan.  We made flags for the teams with score cards on the back.

We did 5 field events: long jump, javelin (with pool noodles), foot race, hurdles (with pool noodles--the one event I fought to leave out but Rex found a way to make it work and insisted that we do it), and discus (with frisbees).

I was team captain of the short people team (we divided by age so the big kids could be more competitive with each other) so I didn't get many pictures of Rex's team--or my team really; I was too busy being the captain.

Alice doing the discus

Getting ready for the foot race.

Alice killing it.

Rex's foot race

On your mark, get set..

Rex is in the red.

We used pool noodles and kabab skewers to make hurdles.

I'm really pleased with Rex.  He did a great job of making sure everyone had a good time; he only went over budget by $4 with tax (which we hadn't factored into his budget) and $1 if you don't count tax.  Nobody cried (except Henry who ended up spending most of the field events stuck in our tree swing because he was easy to keep contained there--he was having a Henry moment), and everyone had a good time.  All the moms were impressed at how well the event went.  He done good.

Unfortunately this probably means we'll have to do another one next summer.  Ug.