10 MomNinja Skills

When you become a parent, you magically acquire a set of skills, kind of like you just powered up on Super Mario Bros. You are suddenly able to do things you could never do before... or maybe just never thought or tried to attempt.

I've talked about our alter egos before in Mission: Impossible Baby. But with these alter egos comes a set of weird and fantastic skills that temporarily turns us into MomNinja and the occasional DadNinja.

In my short three years and three kids worth of parenting, I have so far acquired the following set of skills, some of which are temporary but, I believe, some may be a permanent new talent:

1. Catching mosquitoes with two fingers.
   
2. Hearing a crying child through brick walls from a block away.
   
3. A look that stops a child in her tracks.
   
4. Kisses that heal wounds.
   
5. Ability to sense a fever by swiftly brushing my cheek against a forehead.
   
6. Catching throw up with a single hand without looking.
   
7.  Sensing a urine stream or poopsplosion about to strike before taking off a diaper.
   
8. Ability to complete any task while almost fully asleep.
   
9. Holding sleeping baby in awkward position for long periods of time with little to no fatigue.
   
10. Immediate knowledge of where any lost toy or blanket can be found.
    

More experienced ninja parents, what have you acquired that I may look forward to in the future?

Workin' Mama

Most days I'm a stay-at-home mom. But on occasion, I get to travel, make speeches and talk about diving on tv.

Sometimes, I feel like I have an alter ego. That might also be why I'm slightly obsessed with being a superhero. I digress...

At home I'm just an everyday, regular mom trying to keep up with my kids. On good days I may attempt to shower and get dressed. I'm constantly making dashes to the toilet with toddlers or asking for privacy in my own bathroom. There is constant repetition, constant repetition, and I'm usually trying to translate toddler speak to English in my head. Although my house may not look it, I am in a perpetual state of cleaning.

Just to show you how un-Pinterest perfect I am, here's a little snippet of my real, everyday life. This is me in all my smelly, unshowered, greasy-haired glory sporting a Tom Petty shirt with USA pajamas attempting to do an ab exercise. And this picture was taken after Hubby got home from work one afternoon.

A few weeks ago I flew with just the baby to Connecticut to be a working mom of sorts. You may have read about that lovely travel experience here. My mother-in-law came to watch the baby while I went to work. It was so weird to have someone there ready to watch the baby every morning as soon as we woke up and even at night so I could go to dinner a few times with colleagues. I could shower each day, take my time, drink an entire coffee before it went cold and talk to adults on a regular basis. It was kind of like summer camp for moms.

 And I think Grandma had a little fun, too!

I won the lottery on mother-in-laws ya'll, seriously.

Basically, I got to hang out at the NBC Sports building for a week to watch and commentate diving for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games. I thought it might be fun to give you a little behind-the-scenes look at life in the studio.

And yes, I'm a dork.

We had a special "green room" just for us. That pretty much means "waiting room" in non-tv talk. Although there is a little brainstorming that goes on here, too. Plus you get to hang out with cool people like 2008 Olympic silver medal gymnast Alicia (Sacramone) Quinn, 2008 & 2012 track Olympian Nick Symmonds, 2000 Olympic beach volleyball player Kevin Wong, sportscasters Jim Watson and Jason Knapp and, of course, our rockin' producer Lena Glaser.

l-r: Jason, me, Alicia, Jim

l-r: Lena, Kevin, Jim

Since the competition was in China and aired prime time in the states later that day, we watched the competition in a sound proof booth while commentating. I would always rather watch a competition live and be in the middle of the action, but voicing over is fun, too. It's not the same adrenaline pumping pressure as filming live, but we're still watching the event for the first time and calling it like it is live.

Jim & I in the booth- our home for the week.

It's always easy when you have the opportunity to work with a great team! Jim was a terrific partner to call diving with. While it was his first time working on diving, he's covered nearly every other sport, including three Olympic Games (2000 Beach Volleyball, 2004 Indoor Volleyball and 2012 Weightlifting), professional and collegiate sports. So he picked it up quickly and every event went smooth. Our producer Lena, the voice in my ear Lee Ann, the almost nerdier-than-me researcher John, the magic editor Rob and the logistics queen Kate put together five great days of diving that showcased junior divers from around the world and gave us a glimpse of what we might see in Rio in 2016.

This is just another cool area in the building near our little booth that kind of looks like mission control for sports. Actually, I think that's exactly what it is.

But it wasn't all work and no play. My friend and 2012 diving Olympian, Cassidy Krug, came to hang with us one morning. We always have fun together!

And even though I was working, I came home each day to just one little one, so I got lots of extra snuggles that made my mama heart happy.

Overall, it was a ton of fun, and I truly hope to do more diving events in the future. But as much fun as we had, I couldn't wait to get home and squeeze these two dolls and kiss them to pieces.

5 Videos That Will Unleash Your Inner Superhero

Today my family was so gracious to take the kiddos and dump me at a coffee shop so I could have some alone time, breathe and maybe write one of the ten blog posts I've started but haven't had a chance to finish between road trips and sick kids.

So what productive thing am I doing with this valuable time away? I got totally sucked in to watching videos. I just wanted to sit still, sip my coffee (with caffeine I might add!) and waste a little time... because I could. This girl here doesn't have cable and most hours I'm elbow deep in snot, playing pretend, putting someone down for a nap, calming down a crier, or making and cleaning up a meal.

What started as just watching my friends Facebook posts of fun videos while sipping my exquisite non-fat latte, quickly led me to looking up all kinds of amazing feats of craziness. You may have heard me mention it before, but I have a not-so-secret ambition to one day be a superhero.

My cape wearing days didn't start at the usual toddler age. I might have been a little closer to 30. I mean, I already enjoy leaping from tall buildings in a single bound, plunging to the water faster than a speeding bullet and kids have often pointed up at me in the sky and said, "It's a bird, it's a plane... it's Laura diving!" Okay, well, maybe not quite, but platform diving can give one aspirations of becoming a superhero. So as my kids have begun to don masks and capes, I get the itch to join them. After all...

As I'm watching these videos this morning, I started getting sucked into these amazing feats of strength, adrenaline and pure craziness and well... that superhero inside desperately wants me to get back in shape so I can try this stuff! Going from one to three kids in 13 months was all the working out I could handle. But now we're starting to be able to breathe again and I think these videos may provide me some motivation to get back into the swing of things.  Enjoy and unleash your inner superhero friends. Although, most of this you shouldn't try at home... unless you're these guys.

5. Because these guys are insanely strong.

Post by Mud and Adventure.

4. Kacy Catanzaro- American Ninja Warrior... indeed.



3. Damien Walters- free runner, stuntman, gymnast. This guy is amazing.




2. I started sweating watching this.



1. Because this stuff is just plain crazy