Super score. Hard fall.

Trying to find an activity that all of the kids like has not been easy.  Swimming works but is best for the summer as coordinating class times is possible.  Once fall rolls around, they would be two on a team and one in lessons... so someone would be cold and wet and two others would be swimming more than they really enjoy and entertaining a toddler at the pool is just so NOT fun or safe.

Well, we finally found something they all LOVE!  Ice skating!  I have a fondness for this as it reminds me of my childhood.  I took figure skating lessons for about 3 years.  The smell of the rink is so nostalgic.  I smile every time we go inside.  The only small hitch is that the older two have flat feet and over-pronate pretty significantly.  Rental skates suck.  Watching them try to go straight on one foot, do cross-overs, etc. is painful... their ankles bend in so severely.  Their instructors recommend we buy them skates, even cheapies.  Anything would be better than rentals, they said.  Hmmmm.  How much will THAT set us back?

I started looking in the usual cheapskate (lol) places... craigslist and ebay.  Nothing.  Then I looked on the bulletin board at the rink (didn't know they had one or I'd have checked sooner).  There were some in Baby X's size looking in fairly decent shape from the not-so-great photo for $35.  Called the number, arranged a meeting to try them on ... at the rink during a public skating session on Sunday.  Cool, I thought.  I'll take the kids skating!

The skates fit.  Yay!  And were in much better condition than they looked to be in the picture.  Yay!  And the same skates were $279+ tax in the skate shop new.  And we got them for $35!  THAT, my friends, is a Super Score!

Then I fell.

I didn't remember ice being that hard.

Kind of like not remembering childbirth being that painful.

It really hurt.  Not as much as childbirth, but that moment when all of my weight landed on my hip bone and I lay there sprawled out on the ice, it really hurt.  And I had to work to keep my "game face" on.  I tend to be more of a "c'mon, brush it off.  You're fine" kind of mom and I needed to do that to myself in front of my kids!  Put it all in a new perspective, for sure!  I think I'll be checking in with them a little more carefully and compassionately from now on when they take a tumble.

No pictures of the nice, round, silver-dollar sized bruise... but trust me, it's there and it's blue and it hurts.