Moms bond behind the scenes at Olympics
Journalists from around the world are in South Korea to cover the Olympics, and among them are hundreds from NBC alone.
Through our NBC partnership and a very special personal relationship, I got to go behind the scenes of the Today Show with Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb.
Because of time difference, the Today Show, which airs in the early morning for viewers in the US, begins at 9 p.m. for cast and crew here.
Although the Olympics Park plaza is about 7,000 miles away from their home studio at 30 Rock, the crowds are just as excited to be up close.
"We got the Olympic fever, we’ve got it bad," proclaim our hosts, Savannah and Hoda.
"When we take the show on the road, it's fun. It's like summer camp – summer camp in the freezing cold," Hoda said.
We swapped Olympic stories. With a full week of action under our belts, there’s plenty to talk about!
We are three moms away from their babies for a month. It didn’t take long for our conversation to turn to our kids.
- Broadening horizons: Kathryn Brown gives her son Korean lessons from Pyeongchang
- Kathryn Brown: Trying to keep the trains at home running on time - from South Korea
- Staying connected ... half a world away
I have twin girls. They turn 3 in a few days, and I’ll be here, so I asked Savannah and Hoda how I should handle it. I baked a cake before I left because she doesn’t know when her birthday is. So we did a little pre-birthday celebration.
My plan got Hoda's approval, and she had a bonus suggestion.
"My daughter just turned 3 in August. She was very focused on her birthday," she said. "You tell her mommy may not be there but that means you get two birthdays – one on your birthday and one when mommy gets back. You are soooo lucky you get two birthdays. I think they’ll be into it."
With that under control, our talk turned to Hoda’s good friend from way back: WRAL's Monica Laliberte. In that conversation, we learned of some epic fajita nights and Monica's nickname.
Hoda looked right into the camera and delivered this message:
"Hey Margarita Monica! Back in Raleigh!"
