Pint-sized paparazzi
posted in OmegaDotter, Parenting |Today was the last ice skating lesson of the season. The rink closes at the end of April for two months for its annual refurbishing (melt and drain all the ice, resurface the concrete under the ice, paint the place, etc.). OmegaDotter and her BFF, K., got their certificates of completion and a badge, leaving K’s mom and me to consider what to do with the badges…a kind of motherly befuddlement.
Prior to the class, OmegaDotter and I skated, waiting for K. to show up. (I had forgotten my own skates, and foolishly rented a pair. I felt like I had two concrete blocks on my feet, and had no “feel” for where the blades were, or the inner and outer edges. This indicates to me that we desperately need to buy an actual pair of skates for the dotter next year, gambling with the question of how much her feet will grow, and when.)
Out on the ice was a girl who looked to be nine or 10 years old. She obviously was well on her way in figure skating–she was doing some basic jumps and practicing spins and skating backwards on the left foot inside edge, stuff like that. I pointed her out to the dotter.
Oh, dear.
The dotter began stalking this girl!
And when K. arrived, in between races and chasing each other around the rink, the two of them stalked her!
It was like an itty-bitty fan club. A two-member club made up of five-year-olds.
They cornered her a few times. They’d skate up to her when she was stopped and pepper her with questions. Luckily, she seemed like a nice girl, and I was later informed that she showed them how she could do some jumps, and some of the spins.
She’d go off and skate some more, and then the girls would corner her again.
At one point, not only did they corner her, they cornered her and her coach–a long, leggy drink of water who is incredibly graceful and makes me sigh wistfully whenever I watch her skate.
I didn’t know whether to be amused or appalled by their paparazzi-like behavior; in the end, it was a mixture of both. Ah, to be a five-year-old, unfettered by social convention…
