ice skating

Sam and I have survived our first experience together on the ice this Tuesday. She was a trooper and just glided onto the ice. Mrs. Nichols, the teacher, was very good about giving pointers how to help Sam stand up and how to introduce her to the sliding feeling. We mostly worked on falling and getting up again. Sam giggled through that whole part, thank you very much. Something about seeing mommy deliberately falling down made her giggle hysterically. I was laughing too, until the next morning when the sore muscles came through. We sat down for about a five minute break, then we were off again. I had one real fall, and Sam had several. She did stand on her own for about thirty seconds, and walked quite a ways with my help too. She was very determined to get the hang of it all, and was amazed when she saw Mrs. Nichols skate like a feather around the rink. Her eyes got really big and said she wanted to do that when she was a woman. I told her she could learn to do that this year if she wanted to, we just had to work at it. At that, we got up and went on the ice to fall some more.

They have us wear special helmets so we are pretty safe out there. It really was fun. Who could resist Sam giggling? So I fell one more time just for good effect.

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Sam spent this afternoon and evening Oliver this afternoon. They went to the Kids Playground

http://www.kidsplayground.com/

late morning, and I went to pick them up at Angelika’s house midafternoon. Sam was heartbroken at leaving, and Angelika very kindly offered to let her stay, so I did. That meant that Sam wasn’t with me when I picked up Matt at the airport, but he said he was okay with that (brave Daddy gritting his teeth against the disappointment, or just too tired to cope). I am just as glad Sam wasn’t with me. The traffic into Logan was fine at 5pm, but the wait at the airport took forever, mostly since they lost Matt’s luggage. (Virgin Atlantic promises to deliver it tomorrow night) It would have been very hard on Sam to wait that long as tired as she was. Angelika fed her dinner and we picked her up around 7pm. She was ecstatic to see Daddy and wouldn’t let go of him for about 15 minutes. She tried sitting on his lap for the whole dinner, but was willing to sit with me for a few minutes while Daddy ate. This is one happy girl to have her daddy back home.