That's a Wrap on Summer

Yesterday we had "Simon Day" at our house--it was the day before school started, and Simon got to pick everything we did. We spent most of the day at the Natural History Museum, with a stop at Baja Fresh and another at Home Depot to pick up some paint chips for his collection.

In the car on the way home from Home Depot, Simon inquired as to whether that was the last event of Simon Day.

Me: Well, I think so. Unless you want to have Closing Ceremonies.
Simon: We don't have 1.3 billion people in our family, so that's impossible.

more Olympic musings

***
Simon reads in the paper that China has more gold medals, but the US has more total medals. He thinks this over.

Simon: Wouldn't it be cool if you could be Chinese-American?
Me: You can!
Simon: really???
Me: Well, *you* can't, but lots of people are Chinese-American, maybe they moved here from China, or their parents or ancestors did.
Simon [thinking...thinking...thinking..lightbulb turning on]: OH! So African-Americans have an ancestor from Africa?

***

We watched last week as a kayaker from Togo won the bronze, the first medal ever for Togo in the Olympic Games. Ever. Simon was very taken by this news. He's been bringing it up a lot. Last night we watched some rowing race in which Australia won a medal. Simon notes that Australia has already won many medals.

Simon: Wouldn't it be cool if Australia, just for the Olympics, was part of Togo, and then when they won that medal, Togo would have won their second medal!!

[pause]

Simon: But, I guess, winning your second medal wouldn't be as exciting as winning the first one, so maybe that wouldn't matter.

[pause]

Simon: But, Michael Phelps was really, really happy to win his second medal, so probably Togo would still like to win another one, too.

If you can't beat 'em...

David and Simon are playing "Olympics."

David: Okay, which country are we now?
Simon: Let's be the United States.
David: Okay. Ready? On your mark...
Simon: Wait, no. Let's be China. They have a lot more gold medals.

Olympic dreaming

Simon, while watching the Olympics:

"wow."
"can you do that?"
"I can bend forward but not backward like that."
"If it was in my world, everybody would get a medal."
"Why don't they play all 3 national anthems for the medal winners?"
"I think they're all doing really well."
"Why would anybody be sad to get a silver?"
"wow."
"nobody in this whole family could do that."
"I think the top 8 should get medals."
"Even Daddy can't do that."
"All I want is the underwater camera, turn back to the underwater camera."
"Michael Phelps rules."
"Are all the athletes either American or Chinese?"
"wow."