Photographic proof that I am losing my freaking mind.

You might say that at this point every year, we begin to get a little bit stir-crazy. It *might* affect our sanity and better judgement.

As witnessed by the fact that I paid money to strap blades on to the feet of my four children. And then I set them a float upon a sea of ice.

Until they all went whoosh and boom. Think classic Curious-George-banana-peel-biff. Within 10 seconds. It was SO funny (to me, not so to them).

Did I mention I was by myself?



It took almost two hours to strap each child to their sharp knives. Slight exaggeration. However, it became quite obvious that I would be lucky if Big J didn't break his ankle simply by WALKING to the rink. Think intoxicated frat boy without ankles. As if his legs connected to his feet with only a layer of wobbly skin. And then put that drunk-no-ankles-boy in heels made of knives.

It was SO funny. And very, very scary.

So, the ice rink near us provides large buckets for beginning skaters...when you turn the buckets upside down, they have a nice, flat surface to lean upon. It looks like this:



I would like you to notice that the children are positioned so that they are looking straight down. They circled the ice rink with reckless abandon, with absolutely no ability to see the people/obstacles before them. SO Funny. Very, very dangerous.

Once we got the feel for it, I would skate ahead, and turn around to yell little bits of encouragement to my kiddies. Go Little J! Great job! Lookin' good G! You've got it L! That's it Big J! And then I would get the hell out of the way, because those kids had ZERO control over their bodies OR the sharp knives attached to their feet. I felt like a mama duck, guiding her babies with encouraging quacks! While simultaneously worrying that her young may accidentally filet her....

Here is an action shot of Little J and his bucket:

Also, when you factor in the height of my children and the angle at which they had to lean on these buckets, they were somewhat forced to skate the ENTIRE time, upon their toe-picks. I can't believe that to be an effective way to skate with any kind of speed or coordination.

I do believe, however, that we single-handedly provided job security for the Zamboni driver, with those kind of ice-chipping shenanigans. And, I think I may have spoken too soon when I stated that little kid bowling is the funniest thing EVER.

Little kid ice skating rules.