Shuffles

I have a habit of assigning Nicknames to people I don't know. This is why it's a good idea to introduce yourself to people, lest you find yourself with an unfortunate Nickname. The name I gave this kid is Shuffles, because that's how he skates.

I have to give this kid some props. He's maybe no more than six, and I think there's some developmental issues going on. He speaks and moves very deliberately, and mom seems oblivious to it. I don't know the whole story and she's not volunteering, so until I find out some dirt on the internets, I'm in the dark. He has two sisters, and I call his mom Nutso. They started group lessons at the same time as K. They all shared the same PA1 class.

Remember the post about the first day of PA1? *bam* Down. *bam* Down. *bam* Down. That whole cycle of falling and getting up is dependent on the child moving at all. You can't learn if you don't move. If you won't move, you can't fall down. Logically, if you aren't falling, you aren't learning.

PA1 starts the kids off by "Marching." Marching is directly what the name implies. The kids are told to hold out their hands as though on a table, and they attempt to walk on the ice. It's a brutal process, but within a few minutes most of them have it. Marching involves lifting ones feet off the ice, one after the other.

Shuffles did not lift his feet. He did not bend his knees. His lower body seemed encased in cement. He planted both blades on the ice, waggled his hips in some attempt at forward motion, and moved at no more than one inch per hour with his body and face frozen in sheer terror. His progress was glacial. The coaches brought out the "trainers," those goofy walker-type things normally reserved for the Tots. Shuffles moved no faster. But Shuffles did not fall.

The second week was a repeat of the first. As was the third. And the fourth. And the fifth. Week Five is an evaluation week, and Coach L did not bother evaluating Shuffles. While other kids were getting the hang of a one-foot glide, Shuffles did not lift his feet. He simply waggled his hips like a paralyzed duck, his body solid in his snowpants and full-on winter gear. Nutso complained, whereupon Coach L showed her impatience with him and stated, "He can't skate."

Now, here's where I had a problem:

Shuffles, despite his slow going, WAS progressing. His progression, however, was not measured in the distance of his one-foot glide nor in his ability to stop. His progress was the slow easing of his posture, the smile that grew on his face every week, the minute tick of his comfort level increasing on the ice. He WAS getting the hang of things, he was just getting it ever so much slower than the other kids. This is where and why I think there are some developmental issues that aren't being addressed, and this is a big hindrance to Shuffles' progress.

What Coach in their right minds, especially a Coach for six year olds in a group class, states to a parent "He can't skate" while HE is within earshot. What the fuck, seriously? I personally can't think of anything more damaging to a kid other than outright hitting them. This Coach did it, and this is why if K ever gets her for a Coach again, I will move him to a different class. Had I been Nutso, I would have gone right to the Skating Director.

Needless to say, Shuffles did not pass PA1. He repeated PA1, and he shuffled his Duck shuffle again for ten weeks. Before anyone starts going on about how maybe he can't skate, consider this: Shuffles can now Shuffle backwards. Shuffles can now perform a small swizzle. He bends his knees to dip. Shuffles now LIFTS HIS FOOT OFF THE ICE and attempts a one foot glide. Back in March, this would have been unthinkable. Now, I ask you, how many kids would have heard some Bitchtastic Coach say in angry words to their mother "HE CAN'T SKATE" and take the class again? How many kids would have that kind of resilience to get back on the ice and try again? In this age of "participation medals" and "everybody wins", not many. So, I have a lot of respect for Shuffles.

He wants to play hockey. While I think he should wait a few years for his skating to improve before he goes out for the team, I think he should go for it.

Through the Double Doors

We pushed through the Double Doors, where I was almost run down by a little girl in a leotard, dragging a suitcase with lighted wheels. She didn't seem to notice me, even as she ran me down.

I went in, and there were more girls, in more leotards, all with suitcases. The sign above the counter said, "RENTALS". It was then that I noticed the skates. Ice skates. I had forgotten that this place was also an ice rink. Something in me twinged, then died again.

"Can you take some donated books?" I put the bag on the counter.

The lady there smiled, said yes, and accepted them gladly. K and I quickly left, back to Karate. Back to the Zen Master and the Hyperactive Ninja Brigade.

Three months later, the karate session ended. I forgot to sign K up for another round of classes. I just didn't have the energy to keep up with something I had to cheerlead like that. K didn't even notice. He went back to laying on the futon, watching spongebob and being lazy.

Fast forward another year. K is six. We're at one of our Fancy Lunches, where we sip drinks and eat fancy things like fish eggs and lox. Just another carefree day for us, and a song comes on over the loudspeaker.

K listens a moment. "I like this song."

"Yeah, me too," I sip my wine.

"You know," he says carefully. "Sometimes I imagine that I'm spinning and twirling to the music."

I frowned. I had done that, too. "What, like ice skating?"

"Yeah."

"Uh, well, we live near an ice rink. Do you want to take lessons?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'll sign you up for the next set of lessons, then."

We ate the rest of our fancy lunch in silence. I ordered another glass of wine. Something in me twinged again. Shit. None of this was supposed to happen this way.
I remembered my mom, "Do you know how much that costs? Five in the morning!" If you can make her voice echo like they make it do in the movies, then this is much more effective. "Five in the morning! morning! morning!"

But K wasn't Michelle Kwan. K was K. K was six. K was a quitter, and a crier. I shrugged, finished the meal, and went home.

The next evening I ran into a friend at a school event. I mentioned something about the skating to her. She got all excited and brought me the schedule for classes, encouraged me to "sign up right now," and said she'd see me there. When she was gone, I looked at it. Pre-Alpha? That was the class my friend had pointed to. Ages 5 through teen? $110? That wasn't so bad. Karate cost $110.

I looked at the rest of it. Beta. Gamma. Delta, and then "Freestyle" classes that numbered one through ten. Huh. There was a picture of an ice skate, and a pretty girl in a florid pose.

The next day, I called the number. I signed him up for Pre-Alpha 1. As I hung up the phone, I realized I didn't know anything about skating. I knew that ice skates themselves were items that required some knowledge, lest a child fall and get hurt. "Weak ankles," was what my mom had always said. Crap.

But that first class was three weeks away. I had time.

It's a Boy

Fast Forward a few years. I'm married and in labor. My midwife is sitting calmly beside me, reading a People Magazine as I wonder what my funeral will be like after my body implodes. "Oh, are you pushing?" she asks me blithely.

I grunt and strain, wondering why television isn't more truthful about this whole birth deal. The nurses are talking about what they'll be ordering for lunch as the midwife asks me to reach down and touch the baby's head as it's half-in and half-out of me. I oblige her, but it's only to shut everyone up and get this baby going. There's no drama, no sirens, no screaming, no fainting. only some odd calm as pain slides away from me.

I didn't have any pain medication. I was "too far gone," according to my midwife. I think that applies to much of me now. I'm just too far gone. But I learned that pain has a saturation point that day. I learned that there's a moment where it just doesn't matter anymore. As the baby crowned, one of the nurses commented, "That must hurt!"

No, no it doesn't hurt at all, really.

The baby slid out without crying. There was a moment of silence as the midwife did something quickly and everyone breathed again. The cord had been around his neck. She put the baby on me, and he pooped. It was a boy.

All throughout this pregnancy, I'd thought I was having a girl. A sweet, skinny, beautiful girl, who would be everything I hadn't been. Yes, someone to find my lost dreams. I'd even named her; Sarah Marie.

It's a boy.

I didn't care anymore. I wasn't pregnant anymore. All I wanted then was a shower and sleep, in that order. I fell asleep first. When I woke up, the baby was sleeping in a bassinet next to me. I went to take a shower, and find out just what the damage was to my ladyparts. (It was horrifying. I've felt raw meat that was firmer.)

When I got out, two nurses were holding my new son and fell to chiding me. I'd committed my first act of parental transgression; Thou Shalt Not Leave Thine Child Alone. What the fuck, the kid had been sleeping. My shower had taken ten minutes, and were there not nurses everywhere?

No excuse.

It was the first of many acts of Parental Transgression. I never kept a baby book, that's a huge one. I lost his first lock of hair. I always forgot my camera, so I have few pictures. I tossed out toys, or I bought too many. It was always something. But through it all, we were close.

I love my son, and I'm happy to say he loves me. Over the years we've become a great team. My husband's work keeps him out a lot, so it's often just the two of us together. We go out for fancy lunches and expeditions to strange corners of the city. I show him movies he probably shouldn't see and he tells me all the bad words he hears at school. Are we friends? I'd say, yes. Should we be? Probably not, but I find my son to be one of the more likeable people in my life. So, if being a friend to my son is an Act of Parental Trangression, then it isn't the first.

He's a neat kid. He's not like other boys I know. Boys, as I knew them, were all rough edges. They play mean, they have action figures, they like import anime cartoons with swords and mutants. They fight. They curse. You get the idea. My son isn't like that. He likes bugs. As in, when we watch the fireflies on summer nights, he catches and releases all he can find to "check on them." He likes bunnies, kittens, and trains. His teachers love him, they call him the kindest and most compassionate child they've ever had. He's quiet, kind of shy, but cries at the most inexplicable things. He's a drama queen, making mountains out of molehills. One "bad thing" that happens to him will derail him in a minute. He can't get over failure, and will quit at the first sign of losing a game or activity. While other boys might fight and tussle over who is "king of the mountain," K (that's what we'll call him) will storm off and cry in a corner before the game even starts.

That's where we are.

Sensing some failure in my duties as a parent, I signed K up for a Karate Class at the community Center. He wasn't doing any sports. Other boys do sports. Maybe he needed a sport to make him feel good about himself. We had gone through the catalog of activities that came in the mail, and while he'd shown no interest in any of them, he eventually sighed and gave up, settling on karate. The Little Dragons. He was five.

The class met once a week, and there were about fifteen little boys. The boys were playing a rough game of tag as they arrived, the parents all sitting in a row of chairs across the wide end of the room. I took my place among the parents, feeling very strange as I noticed every one of them had cameras. Were these people documenting every second? K didn't play tag. He sat next to me. "Go play," I said.

He shook his head. "I don't know them."

"Go make friends."

He rolled his eyes and got up. He went to a boy. "Hi," he said, in a tone that clearly meant "my mom is making me talk to you." The boy ran off to find someone more fun.

I sighed.

The class started, and soon all the boys were a haphazard ninja army being herded around by a sweet young woman possessed of a remarkable patience. The line of parents, who outnumbered the kids two to one, watched. They snapped pictures, ooh'ed and ahh'ed, and generally were everything I wasn't.

At the end of the session, I went ahead and signed him up for another. While it wasn't something he actively talked about or looked forward to, it was all we had. K and I went along with our carefree days, routinely interrupted by Karate Class.

One afternoon we cleaned out his bookshelves, clearing out all the "baby books." "Hey," I said. "The Karate Class is held at the Community Center. Maybe we can just take the old books there and donate them."

K thought that was great. So we bagged them up and took them off with us. I asked the Zen Master of the Karate Class where I could drop them off. She shrugged, and said there was an office "through the double doors." She pointed off to a set of double doors I hadn't bothered to go through before.

Something to start with.

Hi. I'm a new skating mom. New, because I've only been doing this with my kid for a few months now, but I'm sensing a spiral into something I can't fully control, and I can't talk about it for reasons I'll go into later.

So, hi. **waves at internets. Patient and quiet internets that listens to all ramblings on anonymous blogs.**

Let me tell you a little about me. I'm 33, a relatively young mother, with absolutely no history in skating whatsoever. I never skated as a child, beyond the few field trips to the roller rink and I doubt that counts.

In 1993, the skating world was all aflurry with the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan fiasco. You couldn't turn on the TV without seeing one or both of them, skating around or hobbling off. Something like that. I think it was then that I got entranced by skating. I was fifteenish, so far too old to ever do anything Olympic, but still young enough to learn to skate.

My mom, however, didn't see things that way. A few years later, when Michelle Kwan won her Silver, I think she saw the glimmer in my eyes. She was ever the bountiful font of love and support, my mom. "Do you know how much that costs?" she sneered. "They have to pay for all that time on the ice!"

I didn't reply. How could I? We were a poor family of two, and dad never sent the child support checks on time. She kept going. "And do you know they have to go practice at five in the morning! Five!"

Now, this part didn't seem so bad. Five in the morning was pretty routine for the two of us, who frequently drove off to the far corners of our state to attend boring meetings for Masonic Youth. Ice skating sounded a lot better than sitting in a car or in a boring meeting.

But, the money and the early mornings ruled out skating for me entirely. I think every little girl has the same dreams; be a princess, a ballerina, a gymnast, or figure skater. I think some girls get chances to try out those dreams, whether it be a princess for her daddy, a ballerina for a day at some recital, a gymnast until she hurts something, or a figure skater until the ice gets too hard. But she gets to try, right?

I never got to try. It's just as well. If Tonya Harding was known for her "thick thighs", then I'd be one of the Budweiser Clydesdales out there. I've got a sturdy build, there's nothing winnowy about me whatsoever. A Skating Dress, with it's petite A-Line would have looked ridiculous on me. My arms tree branches, my legs are muscled and thick. My waist, where is that? I saw it once, but then I discovered booze and away it went. Further, my self esteem at that age could never had withstood skating girls. Nah, I was an outdoor girl. Camping, hiking, boating, fishing, catching blue crab and roasting them on a fire. Those were truly the days. Figure skating? I'd have gotten the ice dirty.

But sometimes, late at night, I'd listen to my walkman and I'd dream. I'd see myself gliding across the ice in a white spotlight, my tiny dress on my tiny frame, shimmering silver as I spun and twirled to a crescendo of music. Skating belonged to the safety of my dreams. As the years passed, even those dreams quieted to nothing. Eventually, skating fell out of my awareness. Even during Olympic years, I'd cycle through channels, pause briefly on figure skating, and keep flipping.

That's that, right? A girlhood dream, gone forever by circumstance and fate, much like the dozens of other dashed girlhood dreams of a million other girls. No big loss.

Nope. No loss at all.