By Mallory Mattingly
Former gymnast Shawn Johnson East may have won Olympic gold, but her greatest achievement? Being a mom.
“I would never want to diminish the fact that, like, it’s incredible what I have done, but I do think my greatest days are now and to come by far,” she said on a recent episode of her and husband Andrew’s podcast. “Being a mom is the greatest honor I’ve ever had in my entire life, and being a wife. It’s way cooler than any Olympic gold medal.”
She and Andrew share three kids: daughter Drew Hazel, 5, and sons Jett James, 3, and Barrett Madison, 1.
East often speaks about how much she loves motherhood. Shortly after Barrett “Bear” was born, she shared a sweet snap of them snuggling.
“Most amazing thing about this special small window of time with a newborn is being able to hold, cuddle, nurse, and be with him 24/7,” she wrote over the photo, per Motherly. “It’s a time like no other that you’ll never get back.”
“BUT. The hardest part of this short phase is missing my big kids,” she added. “Daddy is doing the best job in the world, showering them with attention and adventures, but this mama misses her big babies.”
Related: Shawn Johnson East Open to Adoption for Baby No. 4
East told NBC Insider that “motherhood has taught her how to embrace the chaos and adapt when there’s no structured formula for raising her three children.”
“It’s not athletics,” she quipped. “You can’t just train kids into perfection…I feel like I’m so used to having a program, and if you just stick to the program, it works, and kids are not like that…So, the perfectionist side of me had to turn off to allow for flexibility and creativity and failure.”
She added: “[I] had to learn how to truly celebrate that because that’s some of the greatest times of parenting is the failures that see your kids go through, so that’s been different and hard but cool.”
One of her favorite things to see as a mother is who her kids are becoming.
“Seeing these little kids turn into their own person is the most special thing of all,” East reflected. “And my job as a parent is to help foster that, whatever that is. Seeing their little interests start to come to life is really cool…It’s just fun to see their little minds kinda develop and turn into something.”
While East has achieved many great things in her life, nothing compares to the joys and challenges of becoming a mom.
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