Back again...

Yes, I disappear from time to time. No, I'm not lazy. Chances are good that I'm just not thinking about the internets for awhile.

Keith has begun to ice skate. Not hockey skating, there's no chance of hockey skating. He wants to Figure Skate. I'm not all that surprised.

Kiddo has always been unique. I'm not saying that in a "he's better than your kid" way, he's just unique. In some respects, I'd give anything for a clear-cut boy with boy things like Action Figures and Heroes and stuff. I'd kind of know what to do there. But that hasn't come, and I don't think it ever will. The Transformer toys and Hot Wheels sit in his room, largely unused, while there's scraps of paper everywhere from art projects and "office supplies" where he runs some kind of evil empire to make millions of dollars. I bought him an electronics set, and he builds water detectors and radios and he still wants to do the lie detector.

He has no idea who Ben Ten is, and he watches Teen Titans with only marginal interest. GI Joe just isn't in his lexicon, Iron Man neither. People ask me, What does he like? And I have to shrug. Ask him, I don't know. He likes trains, but not in the talking cutesy train sense, he likes the GTF Off the Crossing trains and the noise they make. He's just not going to fit into any of those categories like Star Wars kid or Spiderman Kid. Sorry.

And when it came to Sports I truly had nothing. He showed some marginal interest in basketball, but he's on the short end of short, so that basket was like staring up at the Hancock Tower. I never knew he had an interest in skating until one afternoon during one of our "fancy lunches" he said, "I like this song. Sometimes I imagine I'm spinning and twirling to the music."
"What, like ice skating?"
"Yeah."
"Uh, we live near a rink. Do you want to try lessons?"
"Yes."

And ever since then it's been a unending demand to attend every open public skate session we can. So now, when people ask me what sport Keith likes, I can say "Figure skating," and watch the OMG's roll in.

The Skating thing brings me new challenges, though. There is NOTHING for little boy figure skaters. NO-THING. At all. Zero. Zip. Sorry. Check out time. A little boy figure skater seems to be largely on his own for motivation and style. Girls have an endless line of dresses, sparkles, spangles, tights, legwarmers, gloves, fancy gloves, fancy bags, light up guards, and all at an amazingly exhorbant price. Boys? Have some black skates. Are you still here?

The upside of this is that kiddo's choice of sport for HIM will reside largely with HIM and not in the various accessories. I can't say, "learn this thing and I will buy you a new dress." It will be "learn this skill for the sake of doing so, and take pleasure in that." In that respect, figure skating matches well with our parenting philosophies here. Skating seems to require an emotionally and intellectually mature kid, and Keith is just that. Again, not trying to implicate that he's somehow better than other kids, but he's got an innate horse-sense about him that will serve him well if he pursues this.

And he's good at it. People see him skate and tell me that's he's good for Pre-alpha. He does skate better than the other Pre-Alphas. Which is leading me to think about a private lesson every so often to stave off boredom and give him a challenge. We'll try one next month and see what happens. I bought him a membership in ISI, so he can earn the patches, which he is eyeing with a resolute determination. "I want all of them," he says, scrolling down the internets page.

No Ice this weekend, though, and he's a little irritated. I tell him that it's Ice Show weekend, which we will go see, and this gives his head a chance to heal. Last weekend he took a front-end dive into the boards, leaving him with a mark that made me fear calls from DCFS. It's yellowed and healing now, and he's saying YES YES to Monday skating with Dad. (also YES YES to all weekend Public Skate sessions, including the dreaded "Late Skate" Saturday, where he got his injury last week.) Also, we will get his skates sharpened.

I called the Pro-Shop to ask about skate sharpening. It was funny.

"Can we just stop by?"
"Sure, just come on by and drop them off."
"He wants to watch. Can he watch?"
"What?"
"He wants to watch. Can we schedule the time so he can watch while you do it?"
"Uh... sure... what time?"
"Sunday noon?"
"Oh.. kay..."

See, this goes in with "nothing for boy skaters" thing. Skate sharpening involves this cool grinding thing with sparks flying all over. He thinks that's COOL. And then, not only were those sparking things HIS, he gets to WEAR THEM. HA!! I can't imagine a little girl skater finds the sharpening process as cool as a mechanically inclined boy does. Girls are free to tell me I'm wrong.

So, once again my life takes a weird turn, as there's a poster of Jeremy Abbott, (Keith's favorite skater) and Michael Weiss (OMG HOT) on my kid's wall. Keith has more than once caught me standing in the doorway, staring at Weiss, and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," I say, and move on.