First Skate of the Season

My parents bought the kids new skates for Jadzia's birthday, so today I decided to try them out. Of course, since my daughter has never been skating before, I didn't have a proper skating helmet for her. I invited my friend Cara along, whose daughter did not have skates. So we went off on separate shopping trips before meeting at Spencer Smith Park, which has a nice free outdoor rink. I wanted to make a quick stop and get there before the thaw, so I made sure to tell the kids, "We're just going in to get a helmet. We are not looking at the toys, okay?"

William seemed to go along with this, until the route to the sporting goods section took us by a rack of hotwheels cars. He then began a tantrum which lasted through trying on helmets, a decent sized line at the cash register, and the five minute drive to the lakeshore. In the end the only helmet that I could possibly get for Jadzia was identical to the one William already has (it's 2010 and girl's hockey equipment is still scarce). William forgot all about the injustice of not adding to his hotwheels collection soon after he saw his friend Leyla. Their screams of delight shattered eardrums for miles around.

When children outnumber the adults, skating is a lot of excercise. First, I held Jadzia up and skated her along for a short distance, then she held on to the wall/sat on the wall/sat on the ice while I skated back for William. Next I skated along with William, who seemed to have forgotten ninety percent of the skating skills he learned last year. Then I repeated the process, skating with Jadzia, then William, then Jadzia, then William. Considering my children are considerably shorter than me, my back was not enjoying this process. We did one lap as a group, then Cara let me skate once around by myself.

Next we enjoyed some hot chocolate and an overly greasy lunch at the nearby cafe. The kids played in the playground until we were all exhausted. We vowed to go skating again, and often. I love winter!