Skate Mom

We've become acquainted with the parents of two of the littlest skaters from the rink. The Dad is a hockey guy, and the Mom is a real skater. (Real skaters can do jumps and spins. They know the names of the stuff they do, too. Most of our rink's Skate Moms are not real skaters. We generally are content to live vicariously through our children in this instance.) Last week they entered a Family Spotlight event at the Worlds competition that had a certain silliness with Dad playing the role of Darth Skater and Mom as a floral-robed Jedi Master with her two wildly careening and spinning little floral-patterned Paduwan learners. It was a cute piece relating to the reality that hockey and figure skaters do not always play well with one another that ended happily with Darth Skater gliding off hand in hand with the uber-girly figure skating Jedis as a Star Wars theme played. Those little skater girls will forever have the very cool memory of skating with their parents at the World Team Championships.

Since skating is a central part of our own Skater Girl's world, the mister and I are joining her on the ice. We will not be joining her in a competition setting. She will be skating with her friends in their advanced weekly workshop while Mom and Dad will be joining the Adult Intro to Skating class further down the ice surface. Okay, we'll get on the ice half way through the first class. Or maybe the second class. Either way, it's a step toward better understanding what our girl does almost every day.

Our class registration includes open skate passes so we can join the lovies when they go to skate for fun. Best of all, the kids seem genuinely pleased by our plan to join them rather than continuing to watch from our rink side seats. The mister will likely match Middle Child's skill level in a reasonable amount of time, and they will lap me over and over again while Skater Girl does little spins around them in turn. That's acceptable. This mama just wants to leave the sideline seats and join in the fun- even if the fun is really, really slow.  I suspect Darth Skater and Jedi Master Mom will be tickled to learn that they served as an inspiration to finally sign up for that introductory class, too.