Here in the warm winter (which I love by the way) we have an outdoor skating rink which runs from mid-December to mid-January. So in an effort to expose the kids to the winter activites I grew up with, I took them skating! The first time was last week. Princess TD was the only one who skated with me. Little TD watched from the sidelines, and looked to be interested in joining us.
This is her first few steps on the ice. She was hooked from the beginning. It only took three or four trips around the rink to get her wanting to go on her own.
She did very well with pushing her walker, and very quickly she was keeping up with me as I skated my normal pace. By the end of the session, she was wanting to try to go without the walker, but it was time for the Zamboni, so we opted to watch the Zamboni instead!
Every day since, she has asked to go skating again, so we went again today. Since Little TD seemed so eager to join us, I planned for him to skate too. I got Princess TD started, and went back for Little TD. He was excited. He took his walker and walked right over to the rink entrance, wearing his double bladed skates. He set the walker on the ice, and it moved! That got his attention. I grabbed the walker, showed him where to hold, and he stepped onto the ice. The first 3 steps were great! Then he realized it was super slick, tried to stop, and landed on his bottom! That was it! He was done. He kept saying over and over, "I don't like it...Daaaaaddddy!" I wasn't able to carry him and skate back to the entrance, so I had to leave the walker, skate backwards holding on to him and pulling him on the ice, and hand him off to a nice lady at the entrance while I quickly retrieved the walker (major tripping hazzard for these Texas skaters). That was it for him! It was so quick, we couldn't even get any pictures.
Princess TD, on the other hand, couldn't wait for me to lace my skates before getting on the ice! She was ready to go again right away! She pretty much skated on her own, making new friends with every little girl about her size. She skated for almost the entire 2 hour skate session. We quit a little early because with temperatures in the 70's ice tends to turn to slush pretty quickly. I don't think the rink chiller could keep up with the high temps and the number of skaters! But before we finished, she insisted that she try skating on her own!
We got several pictures of her skating away, but this is the only one of her coming towards us. Right after this was taken, she fell, but hopped right back up and tried again! She skated the width of the rink 2 or 3 times by herself.
She wants to go back again tomorrow. We are expecting a cold front today, so maybe tomorrow the ice won't melt so fast. We'll have to figure out what to do with Little TD, he gets pretty bored watching us skate. He would rather watch the Zamboni the whole time!
