We have a family night every Monday night. Usually this consists of a little spiritual lesson that we teach Shaelyn, accompanied with songs, a fun family activity, and a treat. Shaelyn is finally old enough that she really looks forward to these Monday nights, and it's fun for us to see her actually engage in the lessons (ie: one week we had a lesson on how God gave us our bodies and had her point out various body parts to us and talked about what a blessing it is to have eyes, etc). Most family nights are spent at home and are fairly low-key, but this past Monday, we were invited to a combined family night/birthday party event with some friends from church at the rollerskating rink. Michael and I were a little apprehensive about how Shaelyn would respond - it could have gone either way. Loud music either scares her or makes her want to dance, other kids either scare her or make her want to laugh, new experiences either excite her or make her want to cry. We decided to give it a shot, and we're so glad we did. She really had fun, and Michael and I got to relieve our childhoods growing up in the 80's and spending several of our childhood nights at the skating rink. And funny enough, since we both grew up in the same town, we spent our childhood nights at the same skating rink. Just not together...
The skates seriously weighed like 10 pounds each, so once we put the skates on Shaelyn, her weight immediately doubled. We spent some time on the carpet for a while getting used to the skates. She was definitely confused about the huge, heavy skates, but she saw all the other kids skating around and wanted to try it, too.
We tried just holding her hands to skate, but we had to hold some of her weight so she could move her feet, and we felt like we were pulling her little arms out of their sockets, so instead we held her under her armpits. This caused back-breaking pain for Michael and I, but it was so worth it.After getting the hang of it on the carpet (meaning Michael and I feeling like we wouldn't fall flat on our faces with her on the slick floor), we headed out to where all the other kids were and gave it a try. Because of the way we had to hold her, we had to go out with her one at a time, but it actually worked because we could give each other a break and one of us could take pics/videos while the other skated with her.
This is the face of a little girl who had fun skating. We were able to stay for about 1 1/2 hours, which shocked us. Our friends took turns watching Shaelyn when she needed a break so Michael and I could couple-skate together. I totally felt like I was back in middle school. I couldn't stop talking about our night after we got home, and was still on a high from it even when I was going to bed. I don't think I've had that much fun out in a long time. Thanks Wheatleys, for putting it together and inviting us!
