Not quite Torvill and Dean

As a part time working mum, I quite often find myself suffering from guilt whenever I have a day off and I'm looking after Eva. I found that instead of using these days to spend quality time with my daughter (the whole reason for going part time), i'm more often that not cleaning the house, washing, ironing or doing food shopping. This made me make a pact that every day I have off we will do at least one fun thing together. This may simply be a play in the local park or soft play to things like baking cakes.

Now, I don't know about you but sometimes I am just sick of the sight of soft play and I really struggle for interesting, new days out to do. Whilst googling about ice skating in a winter wonderland I stumbled across something called 'ice tots' which is basically a parent/toddler session of ice skating for 18 month olds to 5 year olds. It takes place at Planet Ice and they have quite a few rinks across the UK. My local rink is Cardiff and they run the session every Wednesday 4-4.30pm for £5. To see your local rink and times click here: Ice Tots

So let's get down to the nitty gritty. When we went to collect our skates I was faced with issue number one...the smallest toddler skates they have are a size 6 and Eva is in a 5. Had  I known this before hand I would have packed some welly socks to make the skates fit a bit better. She tried two different types of skates, one with a single blade and one with a double blade. I have to say she seemed more balanced on the singular blade so bare that in mind if you take your little one.

Problem number 2......perhaps I should have been a bit more competent in skating myself before attempting to look after Eva. Even though there is a sectioned off area for the little ones, I still found the whole thing slightly daunting. I think next time we go I will take some reigns to hold Eva with as my back was absolutely killing me after 5 minutes of bending over to keep her upright. 

All that aside Eva had an absolute ball. She didn't manage to 'skate' anywhere but she was more than happy falling on the floor (she found this hilarious) and was completely fascinated by what she thought to be a real penguin. The instructor was extremely helpful and very patient (he needed to be attempting to look after the both of us). I think I wrapped us both up a little to warm as the pair of us were sweating when we left. From a parent's point of view I have to say I felt like i'd done a full body workout but hey that's always a good thing. 

To sum up I will definitely take Eva again. I don't think I will make it a weekly thing as it will become quite pricey but it certainly is a great activity to learn together. 

Have you taken your little one skating? What other unique activities can you suggest for our days off together?

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Love Kerry and Eva xx