Thursday night, I made potato soup with cornbread. Stitch and I holed up on the warm futon and watched "Brian Boitano and Friends," which I got from netflix. Stitch would watch for a few moments before getting up and saying, "watch this!"
He'd cavort and twist before falling to the floor in hysterics. This move was named the "flop jump." We then discovered that the DVD could be made oodles more fun by watching it in double speed. Tonya Harding's spins have a weird kaleidoscopic effect, and the pairs lifts look like a shakeweight ad.
We laughed until the soup was gone and our sides ached.
Stitch sighed. "Will they ever put me on a movie?"
"If you skate good, sure. You'd be on the internet, too. Like Michael Weiss, Adam Rippon or Jeremy Abbot."
"Do I have to skate like that?"
"Well, yeah."
"That will never happen," he sighed.
I rolled my eyes. Whenever my mini cynic goes off on a depressing tangent like this, I have learned not to argue. I just change the subject. "Want to watch Beetlejuice?"
Friday night was the first night of the Ice Show rehearsal. (Did you forget about those?) I was excited to meet parents of other boy skaters! Wow! Could we talk? Can we discuss skates and things? I need some help over here!
What I was expecting was a bunch of moms I could chat with. What I got was two lackluster dads who clearly wanted to be somewhere else. The kids did a small routine (which was cute) and the dads just talked endlessly about their kids' busy schedules. One boy swims four days a week, skates five, and also does some kind of football. Another does hockey and also swims. (but he doesn't like lessons.)
All in all, no help. Stitch came off the ice declaring the routine "easy!" I asked if he wanted to stay for public skate to play and he said yes.
One of the boys in his group class showed up. "Hi!" he marched over.
"Hey," I greeted him. "How was your week?"
"It was good," he stammered. "I'm practicing for competition tryouts!"
Uh, what? "What are those?" I asked.
"Well, when 'they' see a boy that's good, they want him to compete, and I'm good!"
What the hell was this business? I never got a chance to find out, and I didn't really care. "Stitch is doing his first competition next weekend, maybe you guys can compete against each other," I said, still being friendly.
Well, that took the wind out of his sails. He never mentioned it to me again. Stitch played with his friend, mostly making snowballs again, not really practicing and I didn't push. Class is winding down, and when the competition is over we'll be taking a short break in our schedule.
We left with cheery goodbyes and "See you tomorrows."
Competition tryouts?
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