Where I grew up in Sweden, everyone learned to ice skate. And this is, of course, something that I want my children to know how to do. The difference is that in Sweden there are so many opportunities to ice skate during winter. Here in Seattle not so many opportunities, next to none actually. Still I want my children to learn this, which could be said to be part of the Swedish culture, or at least used to be when I grew up. What if my children will never ice skate after they have learnt it?
My oldest daughter learnt how to skate when she was around 2.5/3 yrs old and ice skated every winter when we lived in Sweden.
After 7 yrs here in Seattle, she has ice skated less then 5 times in total.
Well, that did not stop me from taking the little one to ice skating lessons. At 7, she was more than ready.
After having walked like a zombie over the ice, she started running like her pants were on fire. And she said to me that she was the worst skaters since she was falling over all the time. I told her to go slow and practice on her technique, but I guess that was silly of me knowing she does not understand the concept of slow. I am sure that she will enjoy knowing how to skate and I know it will come in use, at least once, when we head off to Colorado, where they have real winters, in February.
They did a big circle where they sweeped the snow away from the ice on lake Trekanten last year. I was there with Tom a couple of times. I think we will teach Alex to skate this winter when he's near 6. Hopefully it gets cold enough.
ReplyDeleteWe haven't skated that much as I wasn't that good at it when I was a child!
Also, this will be the first winter in 3 years when the kids won't go to Argentina (all of us two years ago, Tessy with the kids last year but this year we'll pass and stay home together).
There were some cold winters in Stockholm when we lived there as well.
ReplyDeleteI remember ice skating at Trekanten with Zoe:)