80's Flashback

I spent much of my early childhood on roller skates.  At least once a week, you could find us at the skating rink. It was great fun for our family, and I have lots of sweet memories about those times.


After all, roller skating was the epitome of the family fun night in the early 80s.

So, imagine my delight when Caleb's PE class announced that they were doing a unit on ROLLER SKATING!  Sign me up!  I mean, sign Caleb up.

The kiddos spent their PE time for a couple of weeks rolling around the gym on skates.  Caleb loved it.  (Naturallly. It is in his genes.)

When the school announced they were having a family skate night at the local Skate Center, we were all over it!  I am not quite sure why it had never dawned on us to take the boys roller skating before.  Skating rinks are pretty few and far between these days, but they are still out there.  And what could be more fun for boys than to strap wheels to their feet and send them flying? 

We were all pumped about skate night when it rolled around.  (No pun intended.) Caleb was excited to show off his new moves, Seth was excited to give it a try and I was ready to strap on the skates and hopefully, not wipe out in front of my kiddos.  It had been years since I had been skating, but when you have skating in your blood, it comes back quickly.  Or so I was hoping.

Once a skater, always a skater, I always say. (Well, actually this is the first time I have said it, but it proved to be true, so I will say it from now on.) 

I did hold back on attempting moves like skating backwards or rolling low and sticking out my front leg.  Remember those moves?  They were usually performed by the professional skaters, ie. the roller rink workers. All of us kids would stand gazing, mesmerized, with our mouths hanging open, thinking, "One day, I will BE that guy." 

Yeah, there were none of those displays of showmanship by me, but I did have fun skating around and doing the occasional skate spin, which wasn't necessarily for show, but out of necessity when one of my kiddos fell behind me and I had to turn quick to help them.

The highlight for me as a skater in my youth was always the hokey pokey. I owned it! When the DJ asked the kids to come up to the booth and give him game suggestions or song requests, I nearly pushed Caleb forward to request the hokey pokey. I quickly gained my composure, remembering I was the mom in this case, and nonchalantly suggested that he go make the request...if he wanted to. Of course he did. He has heard the stories of how his mom was queen of the hokey pokey in her day. Unfortunately for me, by the time they got around to the beloved dance, I had already taken off my skates for the night. But Caleb did get to play and had a great time.  He also got to do a little skate limbo action.

Seth, the kid who is not usually the first in line to try something new, totally took to the skates.  And those little skates he wore were absolutely adorable.  They were tiny.  Once I got past the cuteness of him on skates, I was able to see what natural skill he had. (See, I told you, it is in the genes)  He had so much fun and I was so proud of him for jumping right in without any hesitation.  He loved it!

Eric chose not to strap on the skates, since he met up with us after work and wasn't wearing appropriate "skating attire". But he watched us trek around the rink, cheered us on, and gave the boys some "good skating form" pointers. Yeah, Eric was a skater in his youth, too. No wonder we hit it off so well.

It was a really fun night!  We can't wait to do it again!