Little Gretzky

I’m not entirely sure where she got it from, but Lilian freaking loves hockey. I used to love hockey (sadly, I don’t have much free time for it these days), and I love skating. (Ok, maybe I know where she gets it from). We thought we’d see if Lilian might like to try skating.

I bought her a pair of skates ahead of time (everything I read online indicated that you want to get the right skates for them if you want to make it easier for them to learn). Sunday morning we got up early, and told her we were going skating. She was so excited, she almost didn’t want to eat her breakfast.

Pretty promising, right?

Yeah, not so much.

This is what happens when a little monkey wants to make absolutely sure that her skates will not touch the ice. It kinda looks like Pepper is dancing an elaborate tango with Lilian. But what she’s actually doing is holding LJ up as she tucks her knees into her chest and yells “nooooooooo!!!!”

I think they were both a little unsure about this whole business.

I can tell you this: if you’re going to take your kid skating for the first time, I highly recommend that you bring a couple of Canadians along for support. Not only are they genetically predisposed to love rink time, they will happily indulge your child when she says she wants to skate, but won’t actually touch the ice.

I’m fairly steady on a pair of skates, but there is no way I could carry Lilian around the ice like Pepper did.

I was convinced that Lilian hated the whole experience, but she spent the rest of the day telling everyone in hearing range that she went ice skating and that it was really fun. I guess Pepper gives good rides? And she enjoyed hanging out with her “aunt” and “uncle?”

(It probably didn’t hurt that we took her out for hot chocolate afterwards.)

I’m glad we didn’t push too hard, because Lilian is already talking about how she wants to go skating again next weekend. Maybe next time she’ll deign to put a toe down…