Watch out for the ice!

For New Year's day we were invited to go ice-skating! The last time I went was on a field trip w/ Michael's class, and I impressed myself so much that I wanted to go back. However we had a problem - the Zamboni scared Michael and Abigail the year before when she went to her class. So thankfully almost 2 years have passed and they were excited about going ice skating.

Now for a piece of advice for all of you C'ville people - make sure you get there early on New Year's day, b/c apparently it is the thing to do in town on that day! After getting in a short line, b/c we were early (yes, I know that is shocking for some of you to believe) - we got our skates, helmets and luckily got the last set of buckets that they give younger kids to use on the ice. Abigail, my usually cautious daughter, insisted that she did not need a bucket, but her dare-devil brother decided he needed a bucket.

So 100 years later after we figured out how to tighten our skates - Abigail was out on the ice. I was so shocked that she had no qualms getting out there - so off she went to the middle of the ice rink while I, the doting mother, took pictures. Soon afterwards, Michael was out charging the rink w/ his buckets. He would dart in and out of people - proud of his accomplishments!

An hour after we started, Michael decided it was time to give up the buckets and ice skate on his own! Now first of all you need to know, Michael has incredible balance, and Abigail takes after her mother (hmm,hmm). He was a little nervous and kept falling trying to hold onto me - in fact at one point I had to let him know that I'd like to keep my pants on during our time at the ice rink ;) Finally he seemed to have the balance he needed so I decided to skate away - no sooner than I was 2 feet away did I turn back and look over to find Michael falling and his chin and mouth were about to have a one on one encounter with each other. I skated towards him trying to help him up and when he looked up I saw it, something you don't ever want to see coming out of your child's mouth unexpectedly - blood. Yep, the boy had busted his mouth and loosened 2 teeth (thankfully they were baby teeth.) As calmly as I could, I told him we needed to get off the ice and check his mouth - at which point he freaked out and realized his mouth was bleeding. We got off the ice (after darting through the all of the C'ville people) and the poor cashier almost had a heart attack when she saw his mouth. After getting the skates were off he begged me to go home, so obviously I obliged.

Ten minutes after we got home he wanted to go back the ice park. Needless to say, I've decided to let the eagerness fester a few weeks b/4 we go again. This mommy isn't so sure she's ready to have another ice encounter any time soon!