Super-Maggie and Her Amazing Roller Skates

She finally mastered this pose on roller skates.

Super-Maggie has a new word that she loves to say.  "Woah."

It started when she was racing back and forth through the living room on roller skates.

I could watch her skate all day long.  Her skates have back breaks and she's mastered skating in them.  She skates fast and stops suddenly.  She uses the back break to make sharp turns and to even twirl.  And she hardly ever falls.

Yesterday she was skating and fell and I said "Woah!" and before I could even ask if she was okay she was laughing hysterically and repeated the word back to me.  Then she jumped up and skated across the room fast, looked at me and smiled and then very intentionally (and carefully) fell and looked over at me and waited until I said "woah!" again and laughed and laughed and laughed.  After repeating this several times she changed into her mermaid tail, and then another mermaid tail and then back into her Elsa dress (which is her favorite outfit to roller skate in).

Later in the day she did something and I said "woah!" and she laughed again and ran and put on her roller skates.  Then she skated into the living room and I watched as she leaned forward, lifting her left leg up behind her until it was straight out at waist level, with her arms held out to the side.

It was obvious from her face that she expected to fall, but instead she floated across the room on her skates and then looked surprised that she'd actually successfully done that particular skating move (she has a Dora DVD cover that she's carried around for ages, and that is exactly what Dora is doing on the cover). Then she fell, on purpose, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

We've got to get this kid on ice skates. I have a feeling that she would love them.

Sadie's Ice Skating Plans

I have a couple of little girls who are incredibly interested in ice skating at the moment.  

Last night after forty five minutes of ice skating and coming home to watch the ice skating competition from Japan that was on NBC, Sadie had Mae join her for three solid hours of pretending to ice skate around the living room (they even put down a blue blanket and pretended it was the ice).  

It was more than a little wild with non stop spinning and quite a few attempts at triple axles. 

There was also a debate when I suggested that the living rooms hardwood floors might be better for pretend ice skating than the blanket they laid out that they kept getting tangled in... but that was firmly overruled by both girls who didn't see how it could be considered ice skating without an appropriate ice skating "rink" that at last looked (vaguely) like ice.

Sadie has her first ice skating recital in two weeks.  Her favorite parts of the routine they've been working on include waving, blowing a kiss and saying "Merry Christmas!" with more waving.  

And I'm impatiently awaiting the time when I'm healed enough to go out and skate with her during the second part of her lesson (there's a family skate time where parents are encouraged to join and get free skate rentals).  

Sadie also announced yesterday, as I put Patrick's little MSU hat over his head, that Patrick is going to need a "hockey outfit" soon.  She had big plans for her little brother.  And for herself.  In her fearlessness she used free skate yesterday to skate out with the hockey players (who are about eight) who were practicing skating techniques.  Every time she skates with them she seems to learn even faster than she normally does, because she really focuses on imitating what they're doing (and they've been really great about helping her and giving her tips).  The fact that many of her classes have been one on one lessons, since the other kids haven't showed up consistently, has certainly helped too.

One thing we have noticed is how rough and tumble our girls are in all of their classes.  I think having each other has contributed heavily in this area.  They're used to running around together and accidentally knocking themselves (or one another) down.  When either of them fall down, and they both take some pretty hard tumbles, they bounce back up and keep running.  That's really helped in their classes where the other kids pretty frequently burst into tears...  Sadie's actually taken to looking over at me seriously each time she falls down and then breaking into a huge grin before bouncing back up and starting to skate again.    

After watching skating yesterday she looked at me seriously and said:  "Mommy, I'm going to have to practice pretty hard if I'm going to be the best in the whole world."  

Five weeks of ice skating and she's coming up with some pretty big plans...  I think they might be heavily influenced by the sparkly ice skating outfits she saw on TV...

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And on a completely unrelated note, today is scheduled to be the last day of my 20% off sale.  So use the coupon code GIVETHANKS20 if you want to save 20% at any of my shops!  And thank you to all of you who shopped this weekend!!!