I generally don't post photos of my family on this blog -- it's fine for readers to hate me but I want to keep my wife and kid out of the line of fire -- but I took my son, Biggie Smalls, ice skating today for the first time.
At 2, he can already walk in skates without folding his ankles, and he could balance himself on the ice at times without having to be held up. From the looks of it, he had fun and asked if he could go again. Definitely deserving of his ice cream cone at McDonald's afterward. And best of all, when I asked him -- face full of ice cream -- if he liked ice skating or ice cream better, he actually said ice skating. Daddy might get a meal plan yet!
Cut us some slack with the figure skates; it's all they had in kids' sizes.
By the way, what the hell's with all the kids today who push around those stupid "ice crutches" -- PVC goals without the netting -- that they use for balance during the public skates? Are parents too lazy to get on the ice with their kids nowadays and help them skate? Are kids too afraid of falling to try to skate without them?
We let Biggie Smalls use the "crutch" today for about 10 minutes, mostly because I haven't skated in a year and needed a little break because my feet were killing me. I swore I'd never even do it once, but I admit I was interested in seeing if he was more comfortable with it because he was a little scared given that this was his first time and all. I have to say, though, I've already decided I'll never subject him to these devices again.
But seriously, I've always hated these things. You don't give your kids crutches as they're learning to walk, so they don't need them when they're learning to skate. Check out my (admittedly awful) camera phone pic below -- you can see at least five kids using these training wheels in the photo alone, and I counted 14 altogether around the rink. That accounted for at least half the kids on the ice -- and we're not talking about 2-year-olds here; we're talking about kids who were at least 10 or 12.
I realize most kids will never grow up to be professional hockey players, but jeez, let your kids fall once in a while.
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