GIRLS NIGHT OUT

Well, Friday night Cole and Daddy went to the Mckinney Boyd v. McKinney North HS football game, so Cassidy and I had our 1st official Girls Night Out. I asked her "you can pick, whatever you want to do" and she said MERRY GO ROUND. So, we headed over to Stonebriar to ride the merry go round, shop, and go skating. She got her self all dressed up, put on a neclace, filled her purse with all the important things a 4 year old needs, and we headed off. We started at the Merry Go Round, hit a few girly stores, ate in the Food Court (I tried to talk her into Cheesecake Factory but she wanted nothing to do with it) and then down to go skating. By the time we got to the rink I was exhasuted but she was very persuasive in getting me to go skating. And the tears and look of "ok mom, don't let me down here" pushed me toward the rink. After the 15 minutes it took to lace up our skates, we hopped onto the rink. Now I haven't been ice skating in probably 18 years so I was a little shaky. Cassidy was giddy! She kept squealing "I'm skating mama, I'm skating". I don't think that smile left her face for the whole hour we were there. It took us 15-20 mins to go around the rink once but that didn't matter to her. She was just happy to be challenging herself and doing something she's only seen in books or on TV. It made me a little sad in that I grew up in the North and skated my whole childhood. We had a pond/small lake down the street from our house that would freeze over every Winter. We would spend our days skating and my brothers playing hockey. It was just what we did ever season and everyone had their own skates. I would love for my kiddos to have that opportunity but for her, this is all she needed. To be able to roll down to the mall and skate when she wants (even though it cost us $15) :) At the end of the night she was wiped out. We didn't get home until 10pm, which is probably the latest she's ever been out. But loved EVERY minute of it! We're definatley going to make Girls Night Out a quarterly tradition in our house!