Field Trip: ICE Santa Monica

 

My 3 1/2 year old skated FIVE HOURS today! We walked to the outdoor rink on 4th Street, rented our skates ($15 per person, but you can skate from 11 a.m. to midnight on Saturdays - if you have the energy), and went out on the ice.

The smallest skates they have are size 8. My daughter wore a 10, which is larger than her street shoe size, but the same size as her tap shoes.

 

I do not know what I'm doing on the ice. I've been skating a handful of times, and the last time was in high school. I can skate without falling down. That's it. I can't skate backwards. And I can't stop.

My daughter started out holding the wall with both hands. I explained to her that everyone falls, but you get up and try again. My daughter was fine with this idea. She always surprises me with how brave and determined she is. I asked a staff member if there was a "right" way to fall. (The staff members were all really nice.) She said she didn't know if there was a right way to fall other than with your hands out, but she showed my daughter how to get up after a fall.

Look mom, no wall.

If you want to get close to God, take a three-year-old ice skating. You'll pray over and over Keep her safe. You'll pray And thank you for having kept her safe up until this point. When she falls and you're holding her hand, you'll pray Thank you for not letting me rip her arm out of the socket. When she perseveres, you'll pray thank you for that.

No wall!

A woman - thank you for her too - skated over to my daughter and gave her some tips. She explained that skating was just marching and gliding, and then she offered to take my daughter on a lap around the rink. I had been watching the woman earlier, in awe at how relaxed she looked, gliding across the ice like the fairies in Fantasia, while I had my shoulders up at my ears, worried about falling and people and my child's bones and the texture of the ice and, and, and...

After two hours, my daughter was skating around the big rink, holding hands with me (not the wall), and asking to go in the Tot Spot (the children's rink) alone. At the end of the day, she asked if she could take her skates home. I told her no, but that the staff would keep them safe for her until the next time she goes skating.

"Okay," she said, "but tell them not to let anyone else wear them."