Teaching Margot

 

What? More skating photos?! Is Tough Cookies: Hintonburg changing its focus full time on a sport with such esteemed terms as the cherry-flip or the camel spin?

Well...not yet!

While Glosette Girl, Margot, and I do have a plan this month to go skating once a week,  skating is just one example of something that I find to be one of the best parts of being a dada: teaching!

It really is fun to teach Margot new things. She gets so much joy out of learning something new and her positive emotions are infectious. It can be a slow haul of course. Glosette Girl and I have been trying to teach Margot skating off-and-on again for the past three winters and there's been many falls, tears and scrapes along the way. However, she keeps picking herself back up and trying again. I have to admire her spirit.

This time we went to the Fairmont Park rink

One of the aspects about teaching Margot that's particularly cute is the almost blind awe and confidence she has in my abilities in whatever it is we're practicing.  On our walk to the rink (the closer one I mentioned in last week's post) Margot kept asking me when did I become such a good skater and how long it would be until she skates as well.

[I learned skating pretty late in life and "ankle burner" may best describe my skating style. If you don't know what that is - Google it]

Of course, I gave her the answer that I use for all questions she asks me: "when you're 19". Good ole 19. Get a cell phone? 19. Stay up late? 19. Go on a date? 19. Haha just kidding... maybe.

Anyways, the way her eyes light up when I show her how to do something new is one of those things, like holding hands, that I hope lasts for a few more years. I can't help but feel privileged to have her admiration and appreciation.

Of course, she'll eventually "figure" figure skating out, just like she did swimming this past fall and biking this past summer. She'll probably skate circles around me! In the meantime we'll have our walks to the rink.