wet bottoms and party hats . . .

Last week Austin somehow managed to fulfil all of his goals on his reward chart (a very rare occurrence) which meant he got to choose something to do - like the zoo, aquarium, movies, mini golf etc. I tried to steer him towards mini golf because it's 5min away from home, quick and easy but he was adamant he wanted to go ice skating.
He has been obsessed with going for a while now but I've been putting it off, it started after he watched a skating episode of OSO - who is an annoying little cartoon Panda who teaches kids how to do things in "3 special steps..". As you can see from the photos below, one of those 'special steps' was to keep your arms out to balance yourself - it obviously stuck in Austy's mind !

When it comes to sport Austin always throws himself in at full force from the get-go, so it was funny to watch him take his first few steps on ice - and his first fall. My cocky little boy suddenly became very nervous as he realised it wasn't so easy . . .
I was having a hard enough time trying to keep Lily and myself upright, let alone trying to help Austin, when one of the staff came over and asked if he could help out. What a saviour. He took Austin on a couple of laps of the rink, giving the confidence to move out from the edge, and after that he was fine. He did really well - still fell over a few times and didn't go fast or anything, but basically mastered the balance thing which is the first step I guess !

Lily 'skated' for about 10 minutes and was actually doing ok holding my hand but she suddenly decided she'd had enough. I can't really blame her though, the poor girl was wearing a flimsy summer dress - bad bad mother - she was probably freezing to death!!!
We got off the ice and she then spent her time running away from me and hiding while I was trying to keep an eye on Austin skating. At one point I looked away for 10 seconds and she was gone - I couldn't find her anywhere and started to completely freak out! It was probably 2 minutes but at the time it felt like an hour, absolutely the worst feeling in the world! I eventually heard her calling "mummee, mummeee..." from behind a locked door, she had somehow managed to lock herself in an empty party room and I had to call the staff to unlock it. She, of course, was completely unfazed and came out grinning with a party hat on her head. I was too relieved to scream and shout at her, but needless to say we left straight afterwards . . .