Into it All

Our little man, now a full 9-months old, started crawling. And boy did he go from zero to 60 fast. What was once merely content to sit in one place, occasionally reaching for things has quickly become full exploration of the entire house.

Its cute as hell, but man is it tough keeping up with him. And the baby gates are still in their brand new plastic wrappers!

Hockey III

She was WAY better last night. I was so proud of her for continuing to try I practically had tears in my eyes. She shuffled around but didn't fall 1/10 as much as the first time and it began to look something like skating. It was only her second time! In my opinion, and perhaps I'm just a jaded father, she has exceptional balance, and one has to think that will pay off eventually.

Hockey II

The Little One had hockey practice last night. Or more accurately skating practice. My little over-confident one had no idea how hard ice skating is. We tried to warn her that it probably wouldn't be much fun to start. She took to skiing so easily but it didn't seem to translate as well.

The little trooper struggled mightily. She fell and fell and fell and fell but toward the end she was able to skate/walk across the ice quite some distance before wiping out yet again. Finally, I noticed an instructor walking her off the ice where I met a softly crying little girl. Her ankles hurt and her butt hurt and her head hurt from the helmet squeezing it. When I took it off she was absolutely covered in sweat from all her efforts and it was quite chilly in there.

Briefly, her zest for hockey was gone. We waited out the remaining 5 minutes of class on the sidelines and went with the other girls in to change. Her mood got better and better as time went by and we left we stopped and watched the big girls, perhaps 16 or 17, start their own practice. I told her I saw no reason why she couldn't get to that point if she practiced hard and did her best. She promised she would.

So, she's still up for more hockey and I have no doubt she'll get better in a hurry. A few days off will help and she was definitely looking forward to gymnastics tonight because "gymnastics is easy" I was told.

Comparatively it is. Wait until I get her roller-blades!

Hockey

My daughter starts hockey tomorrow night. $200+ got us thick socks that go to her thighs, a helmet that makes her look like a Pep Boy and new skates that could make things VERY interesting along with every pad, cushion, glove, guard and piece of plastic available to keep her little bones and joints protected

My wife and I were HUGE hockey fans until the asshole owner decided to move our Hartford Whalers away, despite the fact that we put over 75% capacity in the building for the inferior product he delivered. Mrs. B was particularly devastated when they left since she's not really into the other sports like I am. We have AHL hockey in Hartford now, but we can't get into it like we did the NHL.

During intermission of Whaler games they'd have Mighty Mites go out on the ice and two million kids would go up against two million other kids on an NHL rink in a "match" that was accompanied by comical music. Mostly it was groups of kids converging in a scrum, kids falling all over the place and a puck somehow squeezing out of the masses so they could all chase it and do it over again. We swore when we had a kid, he'd play hockey. Or she would.

The Little One is excited and cute as shit in all that getup. I had to re-arrange my work hours by working late on Mondays so I could get out early on Tuesdays and get her to the rink for practice but its worth it. The Mrs. will take her for Saturday morning sessions. I guess that's all easy compared to the high school ice times of 4 or 5 am.

Maybe she'll stick with it until then but maybe she won't. In the end it really doesn't matter. Finally, we're getting back into hockey. We don't need no stinkin' Whalers.