Blades vs Wheels

When I was a little girl (not so little that it was precious but definitely younger than now), I would pretend I was an olympic ice skater. Only draw back, roller skates just don't have the same physical capacities that ice skates do. I would make up various routines and even attempt tricks. Every so often, my family would visit our local rec center to ice skate and my ambition left me. For some reason sharp blades and hard ice were a bit more intimidating then the 8 pink wheels of my roller skates. So, when I found out that here in Houston there were rink times available for families during the day, I jumped at it. I was bummed out that I couldn't be on the ice with the kids but I couldn't bail on Joaquin and I was pretty sure it wasn't safe to bjorn it up on the ice. Thank heavens we had helmets and excited kids.









Fernando asked the kids what was easier and they all agreed that ice skating was far easier. I think they forgot the death grip on the wall of the rink, but I would take that above a 30 year old mom struggling (and sweating profusely) in order to hold you up while roller skating. I loved every minute of it.

We're Going To the Zoo

My favorite time to be at the zoo is in the morning. No one is ever there. The one exception happened this last week. To help bring home the science lesson for the day, we went to the kid part of the zoo where they have various interactive habitats so the kids could see why certain animals need different structures to help them survive. As fascinating as science is, it was no match for the play ground and goat petting part. I wasn't really into the play ground and was relieved when a friend called. While I chatted the kids asked if they could go into the goat petting area. Strollers aren't allowed in so I stayed out with Joaquin and "watched" my kiddos brush lethargic goats. After a few minutes, some lady came out and asked me if I was the mother to the kids in the petting zoo. I promptly got off the phone to discover the local news station wanted to interview me.

I confess, I was more than a little embarrassed to be on the phone, but agreed to do the interview. It turns out (surprise surprise) that Sponge Bob is bad for kids! I won't get into the monologue I had with the news guy, but I think that he was disappointed that he interviewed a mom who didn't find Sponge Bob charming and therefore wasn't shocked by the recent discovery. Poor news guy. I think he wanted a good ole' stand up for my bad habits even when someone tells me I am wrong speech and all he got was a sweaty mom of four standing on the soapbox for higher learning and giving something to your kids to watch that isn't spastic. In the end, they didn't even get a good interaction shot. They asked me to interact with the kids as they videoed. Weird. Didn't they remember I wasn't in there interacting in the first place. In fact, if he hadn't cut the interview, I was about to go into my theories on child obesity and the lack of non-hovering parenting in the wild.

Too bad the mens US open match was going on forever which made my interview nonexistent (or at least that is what I am telling myself).