Skating Tuesdays

Most Tuesday afternoons for the past three months I've taken B, J, and V to the skating rink. Bentley loves to skate. He would stay at the rink on the ice for two or three hours, if he could. Jake isn't as enthusiastic when talking about skating, but he stays on the ice as long as Bentley does. Viva comes with us under mild protest, she skates for an hour, and then she's done. That's fair enough. We don't all like the same things.

Kara and I tried to hire a skating coach. I talked to families at the rink and was given two names. I talked to one of them at the rink one afternoon. Then Kara called her and set up a time for the first lesson. The following Tuesday the coach called a few hours before the lesson and said she'd forgotten that she had an appointment. Kara said she'd check her calendar and call back to reschedule. The coach doesn't answer Kara's calls or return calls when Kara leaves a message.

Meanwhile the children have been working on their own. Sometimes other children at the rink will give them skating advice. There is a four year old girl that we often see on Tuesdays. She's a little bossy and Viva doesn't like that, so today when the girl gave Viva some skating advice, Viva told her she didn't like her and gave her The Glare.

I was talking to the girl's father (asking him about skating coaches) when the girl came over to tell me that Viva had told her that she didn't like her. The father immediately asked the girl "Were you giving her advice? I've told you that not everyone likes to receive advice." It was amusing listening to her dad try to convince the girl that she needs to back off. I told the little girl that I'd talk to Viva, that Viva needed to be nicer. The girl immediately said she'd go tell Viva what I said. "No!" her father said, "You're being bossy again!"

A half hour later Viva and the girl were having a good time playing chase. Viva had her skates off by then and was racing along the outside of the rink while the girl skated around the inside of the rink.

Bentley is making good progress on the ice. He can even skate backwards a little. Today I tried an experiment. I rented the children hockey skates instead of figure skates. I've been thinking of buying the children skates instead of renting and there are many more pairs available of used hockey skates than of used figure skates. Anchorage is a hockey town.

Bentley especially, but Jake and Viva, too, hated the hockey skates. I hated them, too. It's a lot harder to put on hockey skates. The trio are acclimated to figure skates and could not get around on the hockey skates. The blade on a hockey skate is thinner, shorter, and lacks the teeth at the front of the skate. After ten or so minutes I had to replace the hockey skates with figure skates. It wasn't a biggie. We don't plan on the children playing hockey.