I'm not a huge Olympics person. I like to watch the events, but I couldn't tell you which countries are the best or who the stars are.

My 3-year-old son, however, became a big Olympics fan. He was fascinated by all the events, many of which he'd never seen before.

"Daddy, what's that?" he'd ask.

"That's called speed skating," I said.

Then he would say, "I'm speed skating." He put his arms behind his back, leaned over and started "skating" around the room. And by skating I mean he ran around as fast as he could until he almost wiped out on an end table.

The first time he saw someone snowboarding down the half-pipe, my son stared and said, "I want it." He then took some of the foam pieces from his tool bench set, put them on the floor and used them as his "snowboard." Later I took a mat from the bathroom, lifted him onto it and slid him across the floor. I stopped when my arms felt like they were going to fall off. It's safe to say I'm in worse shape than an Olympic athlete. Next time, I need to train more.

My son, my wife and I also watched the figure skating and the skiing. (We let him stay up a little later and dealt with a little more crankiness in the morning.)

He asked about what's going on and we explained what the athletes were trying to do. I don't know how much sense it made to a 3-year-old, but then again I didn't understand all of the rules myself. What's the nordic combined?

Not only has the past two weeks of events been entertaining, it's also allowed me to share some stories from when I was growing up. I grew up in Massachusetts near a small mountain called Mt. Wachusett. We could see the mountain from the the end of our street and, with my brother's telescope, you could see the skiers.

My brother and I also learned how to ski on Mt. Wachusett. I told my son about bringing our skis to school and getting on a bus once a week to go to ski lessons in the afternoon. I told him it was a lot of hard work and that I and his uncle fell a lot at first, but eventually we got the hang of it.

I even took my son to the basement to show him my old skis and ski poles. (I have no idea where my ski boots are.) I told him that when he gets older we could go skiing if he wants. He said he did.

Maybe he'd like it. Maybe he wouldn't. But for all of the commercialism and hype surrounding the Olympics, there's nothing wrong with getting inspired by athletes who've dedicated years of hard work to their sports. If our son ends up showing that much determination in whatever he does, then our decision to let him watch the games should earn us a gold medal.

Tom Shaw is married with one son.