Lessons

Tonight I took Liza to the ice show at the local rec center, where all the kids taking lessons and/or participating in things like the synchronized skating teams put on a show for adoring parents. With more than 150 skaters participating, this is a BIG deal. We were quite possibly the only people in the crowd who didn't know any of the performers, but Liza couldn't have cared less.

She's been only lukewarm about skating up until this point, not really digging the ice skating videos I found on YouTube and only managing a brief totter out onto the ice when we tried her on skates a few weeks ago. She's not anti-skating, she's just not very pro-skating, either. If she's really not interested in it, I'm not going to push it, but I'm still not convinced she actually understands what's going on. I figured the ice show would be a good way to pump up her interest a little, what with all the fancy costumes, ice dancing, and tiny kids on skates.

The only glitch in the plan was that the show started at 8pm, which is Liza's bedtime. I figured that if she napped today, it probably wouldn't be too horrendous of an ordeal. Then she didn't nap, and after two hours of trying to convince her to go down and rest, we finally agreed that she could still go to the ice show, as long as she was completely ready for bed (and in pajamas) before we went. Jason decided to skip the $12 admission fee (which he figured was going to be a waste for the 5 minutes she would last before either melting down or falling asleep) and stayed home, convinced I'd be dragging home a sleeping wreck of a child fairly soon.

Nope. She loved it. She loved the lights, the music, the people in the audience - even the smelly dreadlocked person sitting next to us in the stands. She loved the tiny kids showing off their first skating skills, the big kids doing synchronized stuff, the solo skater "in the pink dress!" - pretty much everybody. All of the routines were short - maybe 2-5 minutes long? - which was about the attention span of a 3-year-old at 8:30, so it was perfect. She sat on my lap the whole time, bouncing in time with the music, clapping when everyone else did. She sang along with the ABC song the tiny kids** skated to, and I thought she was going to levitate straight out of the stands when she recognized the music from the Nutcracker. And the look on her face when she recognized a They Might Be Giants song from her YouTube favorites was priceless. We stayed until intermission, then made a graceful exit - we didn't even step on anyone on the way down the bleachers!

Of course, on the way out we had to stop by the rec center swimming pool, where the Friday night open swim was going on, and Liza was all in favor of jumping in, pajamas and all. We picked up some flyers in the lobby for the summer class schedule, and Liza announced that she wanted to learn to swim underwater this summer. We talked about taking ice skating lessons, or dance lessons, and she said she wanted to take swim lessons. I mentioned that I had read about another girl her age who was taking soccer lessons, and she allowed as how she needed to take swim lessons AND soccer lessons this summer. Guess I've got some soccer research to do here before all the classes are full, huh?


** 3-year-olds in Shirley Temple dresses (or sparkly tuxedos) and ice skates? Gah, that right there is enough to make even the crustiest old maid want a kid.