Ice Skating!

Oliver wore ice skates for the first time in his life today. Unfortunately the smallest size skates the rink had was toddler size 8, and he currently wears toddler size 6 so they were definitely too big for him. That coupled with the fact that I was trying to help all three kids skate, led to me taking Oliver off the ice skating rink and passing him to some moms who weren't skating. He colored most of the time. I lasted for about 90 minutes. My back was hurting from bending over pushing the kids around the ice rink, and my ankles were hurting in part because I made the wrong choice of skates. Next time I'll pick the ice hockey kind rather than the figure skating ones, and next time I won't pay for Oliver to skate. There were about twenty homeschooling parents and kids there, but only three adults were skating (another mom and one dad). The other moms stayed in the warm room where the fire was blazing. Ian lasted 15 minutes longer than I did, and Nadia skated for two hours. She probably would have kept skating (the session lasted for 2.5 hours), but I thought we should leave at 1:30 in light of Oliver's nap and my dentist appointment. The rink is 30 minutes from our house. I think in January I'll have Nadia and Ian take a session of ice skating lessons so that they can both skate without holding on to a "walker" (or whatever those things are called). This would mean breaking my "rule" that Nadia can't be involved in more than two "sports" at the same time (the reason I told her she couldn't do ballet/tap this year) because she's already scheduled to be in gymnastics and Upward basketball in the winter.

I am thankful that (#1) we could go ice skating (the cost was $4 per person and that included the cost of the skate rental), (#2) other parents helped watch Oliver since he didn't last long on the ice, (#3) hopefully today was Paul's mom's last chemo treatment (she'll have a scan next month and a bone marrow biopsy in January which will determine whether her treatments are really over or not), (#4) I am starting to feel a little better (on Tuesday night Paul tried to talk me into going to a doctor), and (#5) I've enjoyed learning more about Milton Hershey this week. I had no idea that he had built the amusement park for the workers in his factory! Reading about chocolate inspired us to make some chocolate chip cookies this evening. YUM!