My dad always says that the Bad Idea Bears whisper pretty loudly to me. He says too that you can practically see Bad Idea Bears in the ether over twelve year old boys, informing them of the possibilities.
I have a skate buddy. It's good we don't drink together - because things would get out of hand. Today I texted him.
"I wanna try skating behind a car and you're gonna drive."
"NO!!! I draw the line."
But there was something in that. Only three exclaimation points. I don't buy it. I predict that within a month we are trying this and frankly, yes he's gonna drive as he's the only person I trust.
Right now we are in negotiations.
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Last night was straight up disco. I wanted to skate like gangbusters but I have my little queen with me. So I headed to Pattinson's West, our local rink, for family skate night. She took one look at the lights, the floor, the awesomeness of the carpet glowing back at her and deployed her full primate cling. Arms wrapped around my neck, legs around my body. Chatting to the rink manager, she said even her kids were like that and they'd grown up at the rink. HerMajesty slowly unpeeled when security offered her a plastic Easter Egg. And when my skate buddy took off flying around the rink she sprang loose and yelped, "tate!"
I love this rink, it's where our school parties are held so there's a fondness associated. But it is also extremely clean and well kept. There's a lot of staff on the floor on family skate nights to assist and also, remind people that this is a family time and slow down some of the wildings that want to speed around. The layout is great too. There's a concessions area, but also, just a candy counter, but it's all pretty unobtrusive to the main affair: which is skating. There's tons of family seating, I've never had a sticky table, and you can actually get food and candy for the kids without compromising your mortgage. And it's just pretty. Skate rinks have their own asthetic... and if there were a coffee table book of skate rinks I'd be among the first to buy one. I love the carpets here.
Her father sent her these amazing little Fisher Price Grow With Me snap on skates that work like a dream. I can't recommend these enough for Skate Queens who want to raise baby monarchs. They have three settings to adjust the mobility of the wheels. My daughter is two and a half, so the sensory confinement of boot skates and resulting panic at not being able to get them off and on herself was too large a leap. These ones she can put off and on herself. They were the perfect color for her, she loves bright pinks and oranges. They fit very well over her sparkly little Pumas. They also have a decent heft without being too heavy and disconcerting.
So I helped her strap in and we were off. Naturally, the first thing she tried was a jump. In skates. It worked becuase the wheels were locked. She was able to experiment with the difference between walking and skating. A few laps around and she was getting the hang of pushing her skates on the floor, though we've been watching a lot of street skating videos so she was taking "little steps." In rink skating you can take long strides with reasonable confidence that the floor is clean and unobstructed, but street skating, no. You need smaller steps so you can leap to your other foot when you inevitably hit a rock.
It was so damn disco when my kid pulled over and tried to adjust her own skate settings. I snapped them to full mobility and off she went. What's more, I forogt my own feet, which is what I've been working towards. Foreward, backward, around in circles, as long as she didn't fall badly towards the back, I wanted was fine. I skated spotting her for that scary backwards fall to the back of the head and my skate buddy blocked around us so no one crashed into her by accident.
We skated up until 10PM. My children have never needed a lot of sleep. In the early days I was tortured by parenting books that insisted that children would and ought to sleep from 7PM to 7AM. There are times that my children do need that sort of rest, during a growth spurt. But the best advice my pediatrician gave me was under the weight of a heavy sigh. She told me that her children had never needed more than 8 or 9 hours a night and to restructure my parenting expectations to my child rather than the child to a book. This has actually been how I discoverd my son had an innate athletic endurance. He does not need "normal" amounts of sleep unless he's really taxed his body. Which is why he's now in heavy training and on the road with his coaches and my father to compete at a very high level in his sport.
I've wondered if my daughter had the same inheritance. It seems it may be so, she skated pretty constantly (and this was after a day of strong play) from about 8PM to 10PM and did not fall sleep before we arrived home. But as I tucked her into bed she rolled over and looked me deep in the eyes.
"Wroller tate," she said, and grinned and wiggled, "Baby wroller tate."
Which is about the best endorsement I can think of.
It's now the bright morning. I'm having a private rock and roll dance party to Alexa's pick of 80's music while my daughter plays with her Easter Eggs in her small blue race car.
My own Easter gift to myself has not arrived yet.
But I suspect today we will take advantage of this bright, clear day and head down to the water front to (what else?) skate.
Disco kisses, bishes.
Queen.
I think I'm doing well at "being here now," but I'm not especially feeling "being there next" at the moment, in part because I'm kind of at a local maximum. Or maybe simply where I belong.
I find that the initial diddle-fart period has gotten more difficult to push past as I've gotten older - but the mostly-functional plateau also lasts longer - so that's not a bad trade-off.
It's kinda a problem since now I'm completely 'on my own' and not in any kind of a standard 'must live in accordance with everyone around you' scenereo.