Family Skating

Oh you would not beleive the effort that goes into 30 minutes of skating.  Seriously first you need to round up the troops, and convince them that going out into the cold is a great idea... Not that mama is really thrilled at the prospect, however the alternative is the continued systematic trashing of the house... lesser of two evils I guess.  So now that you have about 2/3 of the kids convinced, the other one is refusing to put on pants, much less the snow pants that need to go on top.  "Have you gone PEE???" is a question that can be heard about a dozen times during the process of getting everyone ready.  And finally 2 kids are ready and outside, one baby is bundled up, BUT doesn't fit in the car seat... which needs to be adjusted, and the potty training two year old is half dressed but refusing to wear a hat or mits.  Uggghh "fine, no hat, put your hood on, and we will get your mitts on when we get to the rink."... Closely followed by,  "I'm peeing..."  By this point mommy is fervently praying to GOD to give her strength.  Undress, "make sure it's IN before you pee.." Ok get dressed, strapped into van and OFF we go.

Pay for parking, convince the kids that we are actually here to skate and not play at the park, put on skates, watch the zamboni do it's thing and set kids on ice.  Wow that was fun, skating lasted a few minutes before one kid didn't want skates on anymore and wanted to play at the park.  STOP!!!!  ask a perfect stranger to take a picture as evidence that we did, in fact, bring our children skating!!! Ok now skates off one kid, the other kid is still on the ice with dad.

So now, I've got a baby strapped to me, a boy who wants to play at the park anndddd a two year old who is telling me he peed his pants...  I said "opps that was an accident, it's ok, lets go play"... Ohhh no, the two year old HAD to sit on the toilet.  Sooo convince the boy, who is happily playing on the jungle gym, that he needs to go to his father, literally 2 minutes after starting to play... right!!!   That done, take the two year old to the "potty", while still wearing baby... Ohhh soo much fun I've had up until this point.  On my knees in a public washroom... sooooo not as kinky as I once would have thought.  That done, go back to the park and play for about as long as we can handle... about 5 minutes.. It's really is getting cold now!

Gather the troops and GO HOME!!!!!  

And see photographic evidence off all the mania...

Getting skates on the two older kids, Patrick is watching the Zamboni,( thankfully not running off)

Family shot I had to have... to prove that we actually did this!

Annaliese skating! 

Mama wearing baby!

Two year old who, in fact, did actually pee in the toilet and not in his pants.