after over a month of somewhat patiently waiting odin finally got to go to his very first day of ice hockey practice ( it’s actually a “learn to skate” program and they won’t be playing much, if any, hockey )!

despite saying he was excited to go, having rarely been on ice with boots on and never having been on the slippery stuff with ice skates on, we weren’t to sure what to expect. or rather, we were thoroughly prepared for him to not be overly excited about the whole thing after falling down a few times.

of course, he proved us wrong 🙂

without a doubt the least fun part of the whole experience was having mamma and poppi wrangle with all the straps and snaps on his hockey regalia.

jeez, louise, i guess there’s no doubt we’re in the upper midwest ( the self proclaimed hockey capital of the united states ) because this actually a fraction of the total number of kids in the learn to skate program!

when we saw all the kids we thought maybe everyone from the entire hockey program had arrived at the arena. the kids had a wide range of ages and ability even for a beginner program and we fretted for a few moments that odin was going to get the appropriate attention given that he was one of the youngest and least experienced in the crowd. he happily watched and soaked in everything and after a bit you could see the coaches were quickly separating the kids according to ability.

with the clarity of hindsight, it should have been unsurprising that instead of fearing the ice, odin would commence forth quickly with conquering the slippery stuff – first, by finding great amusement in slipping and sliding around and occasionally attempting to stand. after the inevitable fall, he would exicitedly exclaim, “mamma! poppi! that didn’t hurt at allllllllll!”

first, things, first. coach taughes odin how to sit up on his knees after falling down, in preparation for standing back up.

and whoila – he was up on his skates, steady, for the very first time!

he gets bonus points for making the moment even more memorable by immediately looking in our direction and yelling, “look at me! i did it!”

coach, satisfied that his newest prodigy is a quick study, moves on to his newest student.

wow – the coaches weren’t joking when they said that we’d see the greatest leaps in ability each week this season than we’d ever see at any other age. i thought it might take odin a couple of weeks to a month to get the hang of standing up and moving slowly on the ice.

but best of all, he’s super duper excited to see what he can accomplish next week.