My Slice for Today (SOL)

It's late and I'm only now able to carve out time to write.
It has been a day.
I won't tell you all about my car getting out of the shop (for the 2nd time within 6 days.)
I won't go into the fact that it is cold and rainy.  again.

I will instead tell you about the shimmering, sparkling, beautiful moments that we had at the skating rink tonight.

I am the troop leader of an amazing group of Girl Scouts.  My oldest daughter is in the troop, my youngest still too young for Daisies yet.  Tonight we held a skating party at the newly renovated Skate-O-Rama for the troop--Tuesday nights are dollar nights and I love a bargain!

I originally scheduled this thinking my husband would watch our youngest daughter while daughter-the-eldest and I attended the party.  And then the car-in-the-shop-again-debacle happened and our plans shifted.  He had a workshop to speak at tonight, so I had both girls.

I wish I could say I was excited, but to be honest....well, dreaded might be an appropriate word here.  You see, my little one is a fabulous ball of sheer energy, and I am one tired mama, weary and worn from my very frazzling day.

Oh, but she was excited!  We got there, checked in, got her skates and were quite literally ready-to-roll.  No skating for mama tonight (I broken a toe last week, but we won't go into that either) so I had the opportunity to walk with her around the rink as she skated for the very.first.time.

They've invented these really cool gizmos since I was a little skater that I think are genius.  They are basically little walkers (rollers?) made out of PVC pipe that have been jointed together and they have wheels on the bottom.  The littles can hold on to this to stabilize them as they skate around the rink.

My little one had such an amazing, joyful time tonight.  Sure, she fell down---but she always giggled and got right back up.  She loved the lights and the music and watching the amazing older skaters just as much as she loved that rush of skating itself.

And you know what?  This is life in a nutshell.  This is so much encapsulated into one brief scene of life.

• Life sometimes knocks you down (car? toe? frazzling rainy cold day?--nah, we won't talk about those things!) and you get.back.up.
• scaffolding helps when you are learning new things
• encouragement does, too
• new things can be a bit scary, sometimes challenging---but oh, what a rush!
• life is filled with joy (strobe lights and music are nice additions, too)

I'm so glad we went tonight, and I'm so glad I got to recharge my batteries a bit by basking in the glow of my little skater girl.