It's Like Flying....Or Falling

Yesterday, T and I made use of his birthday present! Yes, I know...his birthday isn't for another two weeks and change, but I have the present patience (only when I'm giving them) of a four year old...

"you wanna open it now?"
"...okay, what about now?..."
"just saying, it's okay with me if you open it early...."

...and on and on. Which is why the present had not sat in its box in our living room for 5 hours (after arriving via mail) before T was tearing into the tape, me eagerly waiting to see whether his face fell, lit up, or did a weird I-think-they're-not-so-great-but-Charis-is-watching-so-I-have-to-seem-excited thing.

So, after aborted hot air balloon, various trip, various stuff, and other such attempts at birthday presents, I finally settled on....

Roller Blades (duh, for both of us. It would have been really nice to give him a pair and say, here, go out, see you in a couple hours. No, got some for me too).
"Why, that's a pre-pubescent pastime" you say.
"Wasn't that a very, nineties, thing to do?" you say...
or, simply, "Roller blading is lame..."

I don't care.

I think it's fun.

When I was a little girl I had a pair of second-hand roller skates that were white with pink wheels. I wore those bad boys on the street in front of my house til my toes couldn't squeeze in any more....heck, speeding around in circles while the clouds swirled above me and a light rain cooled my flushed cheeks is among one of my very favorite childhood memories.

Anywhoo, because of T's and my love for the simplicity of just walking down by the beach, I thought this would be a nice addition, from time to time.

And, let's be honest. The sense of flying you get when you float along, a few inches off the ground, moving oh so smoothly as you're coasting from a speed burst and not putting forth any effort for that gliding you're doing right now, is lovely. And something I wanted. And, something I thought he'd love like I do.

But, I didn't take one thing into account.

T has no experience with roller blades.
So last night was spent going back and forth between M's car (he'd moved his out for space) and the weight bench in the garage, learning the basics of simply moving on those things (during which I learned that I can be a terrible teacher, mind you). He only spilled once (which still made me feel bad), didn't even scrape his hands (I would've felt really bad), and had some miraculous saves after that. Seriously, I was impressed. The boy has spectacular core strength.

We didn't exactly take them out for a spin...

Well, I did go for a couple turns in our itty bitty parking lot. Towards the end, when T's feet needed out and I was getting sleepy (yeah, yeah, it was only 8 o'clock...) I went out for one last ride around the lot and saw that, above me, the sky was my very favorite color - an azure blue fading from a light royal down at the very bottom (where the sun dissappeared), to the color of the velvet that diamonds sit on at the other end of the sky (adorned with a few diamond stars, of course).

It was breathtaking.

I thought about taking a picture but I knew that the combination of my autofocus camera, the ugly buildings flanking the piece of sky I was admiring, and my nonexistant talent for photography would make the image be a random blue blurb rather than the lovely and infinite sky that was captivating me.

So, I went inside and debladed. And went to bed. And woke up, to a Thursday. Which means (you guessed it) the weekend starts tomorrow! (makes me happy)

Happy last day of winter!