Whip It

Sadie's friend, Daisy, had a birthday party at the local rollerskating rink. Sadie was soooo excited to go. Until she put on the skates, tried to skate in them, and fell ONCE. She spent the rest of the party pouting, whining, and crying:

She makes this weird face when she's whining. One might think, on first glance, that she's smiling shyly. Nope. Whining.

She was really mad that I was taking pictures of her. I was laughing.

"Sadie," I said, "What if Mommy rents some skates, and then we can get out there and skate together??"

She felt like that was a good idea, so I rented some lovely skates and dragged the girl out there:

We went around the rink one time, her "clinging to the rod of iron" which surrounds it, and that was it for her. Whine-o-rama. Nothing me or any of the other little girls said would change her mind. She was sidelined for the rest of the party.

So I skated by myself. I would check on her every lap or so. And she would whine some more. I told her to dial whine-one-one, to call the wahmbulance, to get some cheese to go with that whine. She screamed at me.

This lady was there with her two daughters, and she said to me, "See, if I was you, I would FORCE her out there to skate. That's what I would do. That's what I did with my two girls when we got here, and look at them! Skating!" I rolled my eyes inwardly, but outwardly, I put on my kind face and said, "Eh, I don't feel like fighting with her. She can sit on the side and be bored and lonely. That's the natural consequence for her being such a bad sport."

It felt so weird and fun to be on roller skates again. Ohhhh, such funny memories of that skating rink. Would you permit me to skate down memory lane? I think we went as a field trip in, like, fifth grade, and then again in sixth grade. They did these things that were so fun - they would have the Girls Only skating songs, and the Boys Only skating songs. The Boys Only songs were, like, Poison songs, or Def Leopard songs. They always played Madonna or Cyndi Lauper songs for the Girls Only skates.

So. There is this skating area just on one side of the rink, with this ledge that you can lean over and watch the skaters. So if the Boys Only were skating, the girls would all lean over the edge and hold out their hands. If a boy, when he was skating by, hit your hand in a high-five, he liked you. If he didn't, well... he didn't like you. Some boys were particularly cruel and would act like they were going to give a girl a high five, and then lift their hands out of the way at the last minute. Or, if a girl was holding out her hand, and saw an undesirable guy coming to hit it, she would lift her hand out of the way at the last minute. You didn't want someone hitting your hand if you didn't like them. You wouldn't want to lead them on. :) Or get teased.

When it was Boys Only, I always held out my hand, and no one ever hit it. When it was Girls Only, I was too shy to skate over by the ledge. Then there was the Snowball. A boy would ask you to Do the Snowball with him, and that meant that you skated hand-in-hand for the entire song. Um... no one ever asked me to do the snowball, either. You know what's weird? Despite the blatant rejection, I was always hopeful. I kept putting my hand out there over the ledge, and I kept looking smilingly expectant at all of the men folk, hoping one of them would ask me to Do the Snowball with them. I wonder why I kept hoping. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and say to the Kar of the 5th and 6th grades, "Don't even bother with these jokers. Go and buy some popcorn instead, on me."

So. That was my skate down memory lane. I have now metaphorically put my toe stopper down to come to a safe and wobbly stop.

After the rest of the girls had fun skating for like an hour, it was present-opening time. The girls all huddled on a bench for the festivities:

This is Sadie's present to Daisy - she picked it out herself - a Tangled-themed lip gloss thingey.

That little Daisy is so cute. She kept giving Sadie hugs every now and then, trying to encourage her to come out to the rink and try again, but Sadie was not going to move a muscle. The girls resumed skating after presents, and by then, I had enough of the whining. We turned in our skates and got the heck outta there.

Maybe Ben and I should go skating for our anniversary date. He will surely hit my hand when he skates by during Boys Only, and I can always count on him to be my Snowball partner.