SCHENLEY PARK ICE RINK

Knowing it would be frigid I dressed Sierra in three layers. For the bottom half she had on tights, leggings, jeans, and snow pants. For the top half she had on a long sleeve shirt, short sleeve shirt, jacket, and a coat. Her outfit was completed with a hat, gloves and boots. I dressed myself equally warm. We left the building and walked to the car. As I held her tiny hand she looked up at me wide eyed and said, “Mommy, it is so dark.” (She typically heads to bed when it gets dark and was excited at the prospect of being outdoors at the late hour.) “I know.” I said, “That is because we are having a very special night tonight, just you and I. Isn’t that going to be fun?” A broad smile split her face.

We drove across town, up and down the dark windy streets of Pittsburgh. We arrived at our destination and as I lifted her from the car I became a little apprehensive realizing neither of us had ever been ice skating before. We walked down a sparsely lit path to the rink. The sign over the front desk read ‘cash only’. Oops! I stood there for a minute knowing I only had a debit card on me when Shandra’s bright cheery face came through the doors. Luckily she had extra cash in her car. We went down to wait with Jennifer as she went to go get the cash and pay the fee.

After four tries we finally figured out Sierra’s skate size. We got to the rink and tried our first steps of skating. I was excited to find it was very similar to rollerblading, something I really enjoy. However, Sierra’s attempts reminded me of a phrase in one of her favorite Beatrix Potter stories, ‘slippy-sloppy in the larder.’ She just couldn’t get the balance right. We went back to the desk and exchanged her single blade skates for double blade ones. This was all it took she went from slippy-sloppy to unsteady, booty shaking, skating girl. The rink provided construction cones on wheels to help little kids hold onto something for balance. Sierra didn’t want anything to do with a cone. She lost her balance and bumped her tushie a few times but she didn’t care she was determined to do it on her own. As her mother I was enthralled watching her, it was like watching her learn to walk, scary but thrilling.