How about a parenting update! Our son Spider just turned eight months and he's seriously like our little Hercules. He's pretty early in that he's crawling in six months, though I think second kids just develop earlier. He's pulling himself up on things and almost starting to walk and he seems to have a real true desire to start walking. Sometimes kids stay in the crawl stage for a long time, but he gets his mind set on it and he wants to do it. It's determination.

The dynamic between our two kids is starting to get interesting. Skye, who is like two and a half, will play with a toy and then Spider will of course want it and try to take it away from her. Then she'll take it back from him. So we've started the process of asking politely and exchanging toys. We're teaching that she can't just grab something out of his hand... the whole learning to share process. These toys have been all hers for so long, but now there's this new kid in here and the toys are half his now, so it's an interesting thing to comprehend. But she's good with it. She's not a fighter or a hitter. She stands up for herself, and when she sees that it's not going anywhere, she sort of gets frustrated.

It's fun to see Skye starting to develop into a bit of an athlete. She went to gymnastics a little bit last winter, she loves playing on the jungle gym in the backyard and she loves to "swim." If you can call it that, though she does the breaststroke in the bathtub. In the summer, she goes back and forth in the really shallow end with her feet on the bottom of the pool and bobbing her head up and down. She actually got raspberries on her toes from logging so many miles in that pool.

I don't know, as a parent, nothing gets me more excited than the little things you get to experience that your kids do and say. This is what life is all about!

So I haven't yet talked about another of my great sports loves... football! I'm a fantasy football fanatic and I spend a lot of time now thinking about it, strategizing and just loving it. Of course, that doesn't mean it can't be totally frustrating, too. I feel like I had drafted a really, really solid team, and they are not stepping up. I'm going to have to e-mail them and let them know that the season started and that these aren't preseason games.

I'm also a Buffalo Bills fan by marriage since my husband was born and raised in Buffalo. Actually, Hamburg, New York, to be exact. So with the Bills starting off 2-0, I'm loving it. They're just such a fun team to cheer for, mostly because the fans care so much about that team.

Erik went through the years of losing those Super Bowls and I've experienced it a bit as well, though not as much. We were at that tough loss on Monday Night Football last year against the Cowboys. It was just the beginning of the heartbreak.

And I'm enjoying having Bills RB Marshawn Lynch on one of my teams. He's real. He runs through things, runs through people, he's not scared. He's a tough running back. Football is so hard and I have so much respect for them at athletes and competitors. I've been seeing a lot of new football players and coaches and parents and everyone joining up on weplay and would love to hear from you and your stories.

Have a great weekend!

So I'm back from vacation in Mexico and wanted to check in now that fall is in full bloom - this was actually our first vacation without kids since Skye was born, which was over two years. My dad and his girlfriend actually came in and took care of our kids, which was heaven. We actually ran into a tropical storm in the very beginning but it was nice - we got to watch a movie. That's something we can't do with toddlers running around. I'm sure you'll all agree... it's good for parents to get away and reconnect with each other have some downtime. My family is off the charts incredible. I'm just so thankful that my parents and Erik's parents are so involved with our kids' lives.

My husband finally got home from training abroad a couple of weeks ago, just a fantastic day in this household. He's here until mid-October then he takes off for Europe for a few weeks. He'll spend early November in Colorado, basically just following the snow. His first race of the season is October 26 in Solden, Austria and I honestly think he's in the best shape of his life. He's the old man of the team, the oldest guy by far, but he's just been on a mission this year because he takes it year by year. He's been on the team for 18 years, got two kids at home and if he's not top 15 in the world at the end of this season, he's going to say 'that was an awesome career' and call it a day. He's not scared to move on to other things, but he wants to give it everything he can and he still wants to win a World Cup. I'm all for him playing his sport as long as he possibly can. To make a living playing the sport you love, it doesn't get any better.

Last I left off, Skye was just starting school. Here's the deal with school right now with a two-and-a-half year-old. We talk about school all the time, but on the morning of a school day, she crying starts. She's not really big in the drop-off part of it, but she's great once she's there.

So yesterday, we were playing outside - she's really into make believe - and she was pretending she was at the rodeo, and then out of nowhere she sits on the ground and starts singing some grey squirrel song. I don't know that song, we don't sing it, so it must have come from preschool. It's like, 'oh my gosh, you are learning stuff in there!' It's hard dropping them off when they're crying, but I do think that persistence and sticking with it and having a schedule is really good for her.

When I was in preschool, I was kind of the same way. Nowadays kids go to school so much earlier. I don't think I was in preschool when I was two-and-a-half -- I just went to daycare a bunch. When I started to go to preschool I cried because I wanted to stay home, but once I was there I had a great time. I think all kids are like that. I chose to do it with Skye because she's just really verbal and gets to be around other kids. I think that is just valuable to have that experience. I think I was similar at that age.

My mom said I came home from preschool one day and I was just speaking Japanese from a woman who would come in and teach us Japanese. My mom told me I would just rattle stuff off. So it's just amazing and extraordinary how children's brains are like sponges.

Speaking of, I think Spider's up from his nap...gotta run!

No matter what age you are as an athlete, when a big event that you've trained and prepared is over, it can take some adjusting to get back into a normal routine. The same is true for the Olympians. There's some emotional juggling that many of these athletes have to do now that the Games are over.

I compare it to your best Christmas or birthday ever. The build-up is so exciting, you open your presents and then what? You realize you have 364 days until the next one and there's a little bit of an emotional letdown. Now multiply that by a million. I wrote a paper on this in college. For a lot of these athletes, now is when they get the post-Olympic blues. Then there are others who can cruise right onto something else or go back to a training routine for the next big event.

Then there are those who hang it up and retire. Which is an even bigger adjustment... something you can't really understand until it happens to you. When something is a part of your life for that long - eating, sleeping, breathing, playing or training - you just do it because that's what your routine has been since you were a baby. Now you take that out of the mix, that's strange. It's hard to deal with. But ultimately retiring athletes realize that there are other things out there, other opportunities or events in the life that will give them something to look forward to.

As for the 2012 Olympics, I am already excited. Michael Phelps will probably be the star to watch again and I wouldn't be surprised to see him try and swim some new strokes. He reminds me of a woman named Tracy Caulkins who, had she had the opportunity to do so in the boycotted 1980 games, would have dominated the way Phelps did. She still won some medals in 1984, but she was one of my idols growing up and missed out on her big games.

The question I keep getting asked is how many gold medals I think he can win. Here's the deal. As an Olympian who only won two gold medals, I just don't think the world should get caught up in the fact that he has to win them all. How about we root for him to win one and take it from there. To do that, win a gold medal in three Olympics or win the 400IM in three straight Olympics. That alone would be extraordinary. I have no idea what his final number will be and I don't think it matters.

So let's get beyond the number of medals Phelps will win and just say he's going to win some more, be one of the best and focus on some of the other stories who have stories just as incredible as Michael Phelps (granted, his is pretty incredible).

I am looking forward to seeing who the new stars will be... maybe even someone here on weplay! I also love hearing the stories about an athlete overcome a serious challenge or emerge from a third-world country that comes in and creates buzz. I get so wrapped up in stories about the last place finisher in the marathon who may have also been the first person from a small country to compete. Those are my favorite Olympic stories and what the Games are really all about.

The Olympics are not about winning. They are about competing. And the same is true for anything and everything you might do. That's the message I hope you all take out of this.