Missy Franklin can be very persuasive — she's already persuaded her parents to stay and attend the Olympics closing ceremony with her.
"I get these guys to go with me everywhere," she said, nuzzling her head into her father's chest on Monday. "I have the parental units close by."
Extending her stay means the winner of four swimming gold medals will now have to sprint directly to school when she returns.
The family returns to Colorado late on Aug. 13, class registration is the next morning and her senior year of high school begins on the 16th.
"I think it will be exactly the same," the 17-year-old said. "Even though a few more people may know me, I'm still going to go to the same school I've been going to for three years and I'm really excited for my senior year."
Her mother, D.A. Franklin, said the family is determined to give her a normal senior year.
"I'm probably extremely naive, people say things are going to change, but right now our goal is to get her back into school," she said.
Franklin will still have a curfew and still have to do her homework, her mother said.
"She's got the most wonderful friends and hopefully she can go to the football games she wants to and the movies and the dances that she wants to," her mother said. "We hope it's a normal year."
— Jenna Fryer — Twitter http://twitter.com/jennafryer
EDITOR'S NOTE — "Eyes on London" shows you the Olympics through the eyes of Associated Press journalists across the 2012 Olympic city and around the world. Follow them on Twitter where available with the handles listed after each item.