Roller Skating

Roller Skating
Originally uploaded by xadrian

Lil Miss Austin went skating.

Remembering back, I honestly don't think she's ever been skating. She's never owned rollerblades and I the time I think we took her ice skating was a time before she was born.

It's been a long time, for either of us. Let's just leave it at that.

I'm a fairly decent skater. I can go without falling for a long time, turn around, move backwards for a while, stop, etc. All the basics. I know enough that before we left, I told LMA that she didn't need a helmet because she was going to fall on her butt.

A lot.

I tried to emphasize "a lot" because that's what you do when learning to skate. Your body, used to walking, doesn't understand it needs to get over your feet more and the skates end up shooting out in front of you. She must have falled a couple hundred times and I'm not even joking. However, she weights 50lbs and her butt is about 20 inches off the ground, it's not like her dad's nearly 200lbs ass is crashing onto the rink. But repetition did start taking its toll.

The party itself was typical kid chaos. In two hours, tunnel vision parents try to cram in a meal, some social time, a gift giving venture and the celebratory singing of good wishes to the guest of honor. Add eight wheels per kid and turn up the music.

I was the only parent who skated. A few others were in the rink with their precious snowflakes making sure they didn't get hurt. I have an issue with this and part of it comes from the fact that when I was a kid, if you didn't have skates on, you weren't allowed onto the rink. Now people are just strolling around out there.

The other reason is if you're going to experience something with your kid, do it with them. Don't just hold their hand, play WITH them. I can understand a bum knee, but if you can't participate, don't hover. If for some reason I couldn't have skated, I'd have sat my butt on the side lines, not wandered around behind them as the puttered along, holding their shoes. I won't go into a moon jump, but that's a logistics thing. They don't make those for dads such as myself.

What surprised me the most was how taken she was by this activity. She fought through round after round of tears and spills and crashes only to fight it off and nearly scream, "I want to skate!" She's fairly sore today and I know she used muscles she hasn't before. I know my inner thighs are sore and she said her hips hurt a lot. The sideways motion of skating is brutal on those muscles if you don't do it regularly. But despite what was some severe twists and wipe outs, she soldiered through as though at any moment the skates were going to be removed from her feet.

So much so we're thinking of taking her to the Austin Derby Brats Jr. Roller Derby practices and seeing about being a regular skater. Of all the things I've thought about what LMA might like to do, I'd never imagined she wanted to skate. We'll see how it goes.

I really hope she likes going because I like it too. Ms. A can't skate because of her knee, but I know that any activity that doesn't cost $1000 in registration or equipment and that the kids like, we're going to let them do it.

Plus it may be something she can do over the summer.