Skating 101

My youngest son will soon turn 10. He has decided he wants to have a skating party. Where did he get that idea? (I have mentioned having one for myself next year....that might have something to do with it!) My curiosity as to why he would think skating party for himself is because.....he does not know how to skate. When I first thought about that I was just dumb founded. I mean when I was his age...I was in love with the roller rink. I remember at 10 I was already collecting skates, pom poms for my skates....and begging for days at the rink. If you grew up around the Center Point, Huffman area all I have to say is Skate Haven. Did the memories start flooding in? For me...Oh Yeah! I loved to skate. Anyway....

So, I took Max and his buddy skating yesterday. Max loved it. He totally got into the disco lights and music, that is right up his alley. He thought it was funny they played Earth Wind and Fire. He keeps that one going on his CD player. What a hoot! I laughed, laughed and laughed.....and also fell on my rear a couple of times. I could blame it on the skates....the wheels did seem a bit cockney, but I am sure the technique had something to do with it. It took Max and his friend Camryn a long time to get around the rink. I could do 2 in their one. Max was pretty impressed. He loved watching his mom skate. However, I was not as good as I used to be. Remember the cross over with your feet you would do at the turns? Mine is now just a long stride around the corner. Yeah...not as flashy. Couldn't backwards skate anymore. But I could do the whole turn backwards and stop thing still. At least that was something.

My big fall came when I was trying to teach Max and Cam how to skate. How to glide. I was exaggerating my movements and I felt it happening. I leaned back and fourth a few times, something happened with my knees and I literally had my feet fly up and I landed hard on my bum. Max's eyes were HUGE - Cam kind of laughed...but he didn't want to. Max began to laugh, he too fell, and we were all laughing. I had amazing hot pains shooting all up my lower back. Furthermore I had a skin burn on my elbow and I noticed the palm of my right hand was hot too. I had busted 2 blood vessels in my hand. (my friend Julie is a nurse and she looked at it and told me so) Anyway, I got up...and we kept on going for about another hour and a half. What I continued to notice is that there were a whole rink full of kids that really didn't know how to skate. I swear its a lost art. It was also a great workout and Max absolutely loved it too. He wants to go back every week. I think we will!

My favorite part of the day, was when Max told us in the van that he had the best day ever. I was thinking probably because he spent the day with his bud Cameron. When I commented on that, he agreed that was cool, but the best part was spending the day doing something fun with his mom, like skating. Wow, you know, you think you do a great job of spending time with them but sometimes life gets busy and we just let day to day craziness get in our way - and I think sometimes that if they have their buddies with them, they are great with that. But this just reminded me that Max still wants to 'do something' with me. He wants to go skate with me. He even grabbed my hand a couple of times. Granted...it was because he was holding on for dear life. But...its been a while since one of my boys has done that in public on their own urging.

Taking care of business and responsibilities is good thing. But the battle is constantly measuring the amount of time that we directly spend with our children. Even when I think I am doing a good job, a comment like the one Max made has me evaluating my time and who gets more of it. Is it my husband, children, family, friends...work?? Who gets more. If I were to take each hour and write down what I do in a 24 hour day.....who sees me more? Who has more influence on me and I on them? I could go on, but you get the picture. There is a great book by Andy Stanley entitled, 'Choosing to Cheat'. Check out that book for a moment and read a quick review of the book. It sounds crazy at first right? But the whole book discusses each day we 'cheat' somebody out of something with our time. So, make a wise choice in who that will be. Make sure its not the ones that love you dearly. Not just work related decisions, but also serving within good things too. Ministry can sometimes fall into this scenerio too. If you are active within your church community, you know what I'm talking about. It's a great book and I've picked it back up for a refresher and for some encouragement in using my time well! A reminder that sometimes you have to say no to some really good things in order to say yes to the very best things in your life.

Last week, I just happened to schedule a massage appointment for Monday. Seemed kind of a random thought, but its been a while since I've visited my spa and I try to go every so often to keep up with what is going on. yeah, one of the hardships of my job. Anyway, I thought then, that it would be for just relaxing. Well, today I'm enjoying my appropriate dose of ALIEVE and I can totally see that my back needs a bit of work from that fall. Because God does see all and knows all....I wonder if that was my 'divine' suggestion allowing me a gift of recovering on Monday. I'll say yes.... God is good.