Thursday, December 12, 2013

Ilea Crawls

In other news,
Ilea has begun crawling...
Yes, at 6 months she is off and away.
I distinctly remember being able to put Orin
down at 8 or 9 months and have him
remain in basically the same place.
Not so with this one.
This baby is nothing but trouble.

Steps to hockey

Ever since Orin learned to skate
he has wanted to play hockey.
He didn’t have to wait long because
in Massachusetts, playing hockey or figure skating
is just what you do in the winter
(there are not that many options
when it is 8 degrees outside)
Growing up, I have fond memories
of 10 hour days at the rink
during tournament weekends
as my brother and I alternated games.

I considered for a short time
depriving my son of the full hockey experience:
the feeling of the cold air rushing through 
your jersey, the sound of the puck
ricocheting off the boards,
the taste of airheads and nachos for dinner,
the smell of the end-of-season
hockey bag... 
but then I decided against it.

So during the sales of the off season last summer,
we collected all of his gear.
 And then, during the fall, we signed him up
for the learn-to-skate program.
 But skating once a week for seven
weeks doesn’t add up to enough practice time,
so we needed a way to clock more hours
in between sessions.
Of course, there was no way I could
take him to skate
because I had to take care of Ilea…
 
Just kidding.

-->
 
 Didn’t I already mention how we east coasters
feel about hockey?
You can hop on the ice when you are 5 minutes
old out here.
So we got some good family practice in
and finally, he was ready:
 Here he is lined up with some of his teammates
(Orin is on the right side of the picture,
notice that for possibly the first time ever
he is the tallest person in the group)
 And at last, it was time to play:
 At this point, I think you need a video
to fully take in the adorableness.
Orin is in the middle with grey shin pad covers
(shin pad covers = mom's leg warmers)
 Later on in the scrimmage
Orin got the puck, broke away from the pack
and scored the only goal of the game.
To say we were proud would be
the understatement of the year.