Ice Skating

Watching your child learn to ice skate is like watching a baby giraffe learn to walk. 

Eliza has been desperate to go ice skating for a while now. For her birthday Auntie Jenny, Uncle Howie and Oscar gave her money to go ice skating and these holidays provided the change to go. Mum and Dad kindly looked after Alexander and Daniel was at Kids Games so I could spend some one on one time with Eliza. I really didn't know how Eliza would go. I was kinda expecting her to have a go, fall down and refuse to have another go. Boy did she prove me wrong!

We arrived, got our skates and put them on. 

We then hobbled onto the ice rink. Eliza was surprised at how slippery it was.

How she started

She started by clinging onto my hand for dear life. Baby giraffe! But I just love that smile!

We did a few laps around the rink with her holding my hand, arms and legs flying everywhere. But many smiles and giggles.
She had a go at standing on her own.

She then wanted to have a go at skating on her own.

She was pretty proud of herself.

We then had a lovely lady come up to us and offer to help Eliza with her skating. We both held her hand and she told Eliza to just walk on the ice as we skated her around. We did a few laps and Eliza seemed to be growing in confidence. Eliza then said she wanted to just skate with Mummy so we thanked the lady. Later I noticed that she was one of the people who worked there. We must have looked like we needed help. Ha.

We started to do some laps on our own with Eliza walking.

I did love her holding my hand tightly while skating around.

We headed into the middle of the rink for Eliza to do a bit more skating on her own with a bit more space.

She was doing really well with her walking and sliding along on the ice and keeping her balance.

Her confidence was growing so she tried to jump on the ice. It didn't go so well. Ha.

She started to get the hang of walking and gliding along on the ice.

She then wanted to skate on her own infront of me. Clever girl. (She also really liked the music in the background. Has asked to listen to it multiple times when we were at home).

We started a game where she would skate to me and then give me a big hug. I love the concentration on her face as she skates along. I also loved her clinging to me once she made it to me.

 As it went past 2 hours of skating I thought she might have had enough. Nope I was wrong. She wanted to skate to the end of the session. It involved more hand holding skating.

Her confidence when skating to me really increased!

At no point when she fell down did she get upset or want to give up. Instead she had this nice big smile on her face, then she'd get up again and try again.

Just before the session finished she had 1 last skate on her own. Amazing to see how far she came in a 2.5 hour session.

 When we finished Eliza asked me if we could go ice skating again tomorrow. She is so keen to go back. I am so proud of her and how she persisted with skating. I am so proud of her getting up when she fell down. I am so proud of her for skating for so long. She absolutely loved it and is keen to go back again soon.

After skating for a treat I took her to get a Boost Juice. So tasty and special to share with my baby girl.