Roller Derby

Tonight we attended Lucy's birthday party. It was a roller skating birthday party. If you know me, you know how this caused my stress level to go through the roof. 8 minutes before we had to leave Chris threatened to make me stay home because I was contemplating bringing helmets and pads to the roller rink with us. Head injuries, people, head injuries. His exact words to me, "If this is going to be like a trip to the park with you then you just need to stay home." And I laughed - a high pitched nervous laugh - and then he said, "Seriously. If you are thinking about padding them up, you can just stop. I'll take them and they will be fine."

So, I took a deep breath and made the decision to throw caution to the wind and let my children skate without safety precautions....

We arrived. We rented skates. We laced up. And Chan took off on the carpet. She was thrilled! Excited! Pumped! This would not be at all difficult. Of course, she had not entered the rink at this point. She was slowly skating on the carpeted side area. I warned her that the wood floor was much different, but she wasn't listening. And then she crashed. At that point, the rest of the evening was doomed by frustration. Chan is one of those children who think that they should be a prodigy at everything that they attempt. She has a hard time with the concept of practice. And so falling was a crushing blow to her ego. The evening ended in tears. To be fair, I am going to pretend that she was crying about her bruised tail bone and not the fact that she felt that she was ready for the roller derby team, only to learn that she still had a long way to go. (Side note: Chris gave her an ice pack for her bottom when we got home...she tucked it into her underwear and waddled around the house. It was actually very cute.)

Casey, on the other hand, exudes confidence and knows how awesome she is and so the fact that she only fell 18 times and not 20, made for a very enjoyable evening.

I also had a very enjoyable evening. Until they played Rob Base, (I do love some Rob Base), and I looked around and realized that I was the only one jamming out on the rink. And when I say "only one" I mean that I was the only adult. Then I felt lame. But really, I'm okay with lame. And I didn't fall at all....so all of those afternoons roller skating in my aunt and uncle's basement proved to be worth it.

New summer activity: teaching Chan how to roller skate.