One day Erica comes home and while wearing socks, she does this sliding motion across the floor.\u00a0 I ask her what is she doing, and she says “I’m skaping!”<\/p>\n
Our friend Tony and his daugher Isabelle have been going to the local rink near our house so we decided to give it a try… for real.<\/p>\n
Well the day we chose was the “Skate with Santa”- translation- the place is a zoo.\u00a0 We managed to get E a rental (boy’s hockey skates) and got them on without too much drama.\u00a0 The skates seem to fit, and standing the first time was like watching a newborn deer find its legs for the first time…<\/p>\n
The ice opens, and we waddle on up to the rink.\u00a0 When we got to the ice, E wouldn’t step on, and had to be encouraged.\u00a0 I’m wondering, ok, how am I going to do this… and trying to think back to when I first learned to skate.<\/p>\n
I bent over, took a wide stance, and held her under her armpits.\u00a0 With her big helmet on, I couldn’t really see what her feet were doing, but we took it slow and tried to make our way over to the kid end of the ice.\u00a0 As we make our way over,\u00a0 I’m thinking ‘she’s kinda heavy’ and I looked down at her feet… which were lifted off the ice and tucked under like a bird in flight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Stand UP!”\u00a0<\/p>\n
She makes a feeble attempt at standing… and at that point I knew I had to basically carry her, bent over double, to the other end of the ice… at a snails pace.<\/p>\n
Once we got to the other end, my back was ready for shiatsu, and as we couldn’t get a metal stand to help her learn, it basically meant holding her up and trying to help her get her balance.\u00a0 At that point, we’re told to get off as they needed to clean the ice.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude10<\/p>\n
After a wait, we do the whole thing again, but this time someone saw that she was a total beginner and offered up their metal stand (yes there were kids who could skate just fine, but were using the stands for whatever reason).\u00a0<\/p>\n
From that point on, it wasn’t bad.\u00a0 She could stand and with Isabelle’s encouragement, get some forward progress.\u00a0 It was funny to watch her try to “run” with skates on rather than angle the toe out and push off… and she fell down every 20 seconds… and for me it was like picking up a 30lb sack of potatoes every 20 seconds.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n
Still, I think she had fun, and even got a helium balloon and candy cane from Santa out of the experience.<\/p>\n
![\"Isabelle](\"http:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/194_9424-300x225.jpg\" "\\"194_9424\\"")
<\/a><\/dt>\n![\"194_9423\"](\"http:\/\/derekandevonne.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/194_9423-300x225.jpg\" "\\"194_9423\\"")
<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"