Rolling

Our land trust that leases our land to us took us roller skating today. Our boys hadn't been before (other than using the strap-on ones in the garage).

Confession: I was a bit nervous about taking them by myself (my wife had to work). New things to learn don't always go well--especially if they involve falling down. Anders is still riding his bike with training wheels because he's fighting working towards taking them off. And right off the bat, as we were putting on our skates, Anders didn't want to do it anymore because the skates were too tight around his feet (they were the right size, but he wanted more space to move his feet around within the skates).

Surprisingly, Anders was the one who took off. I did a few laps holding on to each of their hands. But Anders starting going by himself. He believes he counted 17 laps around the rink before we left. Nils wasn't as fond of it (though a few hours after we'd left and were home, he wanted to go back and skate some more). And I got a good workout from holding Nils up and keeping him from falling.

Lesson: Its important to keep trying new activities. And keep trying. And keep trying. Anders got a good confidence boost from today. He's up to working on his bike more to get the training wheels off. And Nils is confident enough that it didn't matter to him if he wasn't able to skate well yet. He knows it'll come someday.