While visiting Darrin’s family in Illinois this winter, we took the kids on their first ice skating adventure. While we’ve roller skated together, none of the kids had ever tried ice skating and found the indoor rink experience to be both exciting and hard work.
Caroline, 10, took advantage of the aid to help acclimate beginners to the motion of skating (which was very cool by the way – it was like a sliding walker) and took to the ice with her cousins, gradually giving up the tool and holding hands with her pals. She was a little nervous about falling and found the ice surface to be unforgiving and sometimes painful. She kept a good attitude though and had just as much fun hanging out and drinking hot chocolate with her buddies as she did on the ice.
Eric, 6, was determined to “do it myself” and declined the aid, working very hard to figure it out and accomplishing his goal of skating around the rink without help from mom, dad, or anyone else near him. There were tense moments of frustration but he stayed the course and persevered.
Adam, 8 , was the most fun to watch. Sheer abandonment of expectations, what people thought, or accomplishing anything, Adam threw himself (sometimes literally) into the ice skating experience. He had so much fun...
laughing at himself trying to do something that just wasn’t working that he was caught up in the joy, laughter, and experience itself. Although all three enjoyed the day, Adam had the most positive review and found it to be, “Completely awesome!”
laughing at himself trying to do something that just wasn’t working that he was caught up in the joy, laughter, and experience itself. Although all three enjoyed the day, Adam had the most positive review and found it to be, “Completely awesome!”
It made me think of all the things we miss out on because we could be driven by fear, worried about what people think, or caught up in accomplishing a goal.
Watching Adam slide around on the ice and sometimes having to catch my breath from laughing so hard after being pulled down with him reminded me that sometimes we all need to whole heartedly embrace things that could cause us a little pain, potentially bring disapproval from other people, or might invite the possibility of failure. Just for the joy of the experience.
Thanks for reminding me of what Adam said about the day. It's really neat that Adam was the child that just abandoned concern. We had a lot of fun and no one more than Adam... I thought he was just crazy!... glad to know there was so much more behind it...
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