Parenting: American Girl Skates Sold Out

American Girl has it in for skating families this year – the limited edition doll of the year is Mia the figure skater. I posted about Mia about six months ago and you’d think I’d have heeded my own warning.

At nearly 13, I thought Ice Girl had grown out of the American Girl doll phase. She has a bunch of them in various boxes scattered from the basement up to her room. She doesn’t play with them anymore, so I thought Mia, the American Girl’s limited edition figure skater, was no threat.

“Ohmygod, Mom, I have to have Mia and all of her accessories.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I need, need, need that doll, Mom, and her cool room and her overpriced posters.”

“But you’re almost 13. You never play with your dolls anymore.”

“Mom. Mom. Mo-ooom. I love my dolls. What are you talking about?”

So. Ice Grandma popped the $100 or so for the doll, who doesn’t come with skates. On Friday I tried buying the accessory package with skates, a skate bag, and some other overpriced trinkets. Sold out.

Plain ol’ American Girl skates? Sold out.

E-Bay? Yeah, they have ’em, but they’re selling for – get this - $75. On the American Girl site, the accessories were $28. Mind you, these $75 fake skates are for a pretend skater.

Last Friday, Ice Girl skated at the rink near the American Girl headquarters. As I drove from the rink out onto Pleasant View Road (named after Pleasant Rowland and her Pleasant Company), I had an urge to storm the castle and take the skates right from the stock room.

I didn’t though. I made a rude gesture towards the building instead. I’m sure the workers felt my negative vibes.

Parenting Lesson 1: Buy early.

Parenting Lesson 2: Hide all American Girl catalogs before Ice Girl sees them.

Parenting Lesson 3: Purchase a siege engine for the next time I drive by the Pleasant Company. The question is: catapult or trebuchet? I should buy one early, before they're out of stock.

Survey Results: Youth and Organized Sports

In my work as an education writer, I come across a lot of research and surveys. One that crossed my desk in October was a survey commissioned by the Women’s Sports Foundation called Go Out and Play: Youth Sports in America. You can download the entire report here, but I warn you: it’s 192 pages. http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Research-Reports/Go-Out-and-Play.aspx

What I thought was most interesting was the bit about why kids drop out of sports. Ice Girl is a gymnastics dropout. She left the sport after nine years because, well, she just didn’t love it $150 worth. When we stopped, she was just fine with not going.

According to the survey, most kids (38%) drop out of a sport because they’re not having fun anymore. That’s pretty legitimate, I think. The number two reason was for studying and grades (31%) and the number three reason was because of a health concern or injury (28%). Coaching conflicts were in the number four slot (20%), number five was outside interests like school clubs (19%), and number six was teammate conflicts (17%).

The troubling numbers come from families in trouble, something we’re going to see a lot of in 2009. Kids drop out because they can’t make it to practice (17%), don’t have the money (7%), or don’t have the equipment (7%).

Kids who drop out permanently from a sport report the lowest family satisfaction, which is a measure of family communication, flexibility, and cohesion. That means that these kids who are dropping out are the ones whose families are in the most trouble. These are the kids who most need sports to give them some sort of positive structure and drive.

The report had an upside, too. Two-thirds of the kids surveyed reported that playing a sport was either the most important (11%) or one of the most important (54%) things in their life.

Kids who are involved in sports report a higher satisfaction with their family and home life than students who do not play a sport. (The numbers are pretty complex and compare single-parent and dual-parent homes with one-, two-, and three- sport athletes.) Sports participation improves family communication and parents and children spend more time together.

So, even with the uncertain economy, Ice Girl will continue with her figure skating. She loves it, it promotes fitness, and it’s good for the family.

Food for thought: genetic testing and sports

"Born to Run? Little ones get test for sports gene"
11.29.08, The New York Times, Juliet Macur
Some parents are lining up to get a new genetic test that aims to predict a child’s natural athletic strengths by collecting DNA and having it analyzed for a specific gene. The New York Times reports that DNA is collected by a simple swab inside the child’s cheek and along the gums and then the sample is sent to a lab for analysis of the gene ACTN3. A 2003 study discovered the link between ACTN3 and athletic ability. In this era of genetic testing, DNA is being analyzed to determine predispositions to disease, but experts raise serious questions about marketing it as a first step in finding a child’s sports niche. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/sports/30genetics.html?em


Well, I tell you this. I wouldn't test my kid. You need to read to the second page of the article to find the neat quote about the springiest guy in Spain and lining up kindergarteners for a free race.

As I've mentioned in several other posts, Ice Girl was mediocre to lousy in all other sports she'd tried. A gymnastics drop-out (9 years), Ice Girl tried soccer, basketball, and swimming. Lousy, lousy, lousy. She was mediocre at gymnastics.

Figure skating, though. Holy cow. We weren't prepared for her to go from Basic 3 to Limited Beginniner in a year. I don't think any test would have revealed that, either.

So, I'm saving my $147 and throwing it at the ice instead. Even a free race with kindergarteners probably wouldn't have revealed Ice Girl's talent. Of course, now that Ice Girl is almost 13, I bet she'd kick those little kids' butts. Well, most of them, anyway.

One-sport athletes have a higher risk of injury

In the November 13 issue of the Wisconsin State Journal, the front-page article was about how youth who train rigorously in just one sport are at risk for more sports injuries than their multi-sport peers.

Local doctors from the University of Wisconsin Hospital and the UW Medical School said that injuries can occur from muscle overuse.

The article doesn’t site a study, and, in fact, one of the physicians said that there really isn’t one that proves one-sport athletes have more injuries. However, she said that if you were to ask sports physicians if they’re seeing more one-sport athletes with injuries, they’d say yes.

What does this mean for the figure skating parent? Well, I’m pretty uncomfortable about it, I tell you.

Ice Girl skates eight hours/week and more if she can. She loves to ride her bike, but I’m not sure that balances out the risk. If you’ve spent any time in the figure skating world, you know that eight hours is nothing. Most kids skate 12 + hours/week.

The doctors in the article said that chronic pain is a red flag and the cure is to take time off from the sport. "If you take a break now and you give your body a chance to recover and heal, then you're going to be healthier and happier later," said Dr. Alison Brooks, an assistant professor in the orthopedics department at the UW medical school. "But if you keep trying to push through pain and injury and never give your body a chance to recover, it's never going to recover. Most people, of course, don't want to hear, 'Part of your treatment is not playing your sport.”

Ice Girl’s not having pain and she’s having plenty of fun. I’m hoping recreational biking and swimming will balance out any one-sport injury risk.

Sewing review: Jalie shrug/bolero pattern #2558

I haven’t started again on that dress I ruined. I wanted to, I really did. But I needed a shot of courage before bringing out that Specialty Sportswear pattern again. Those Specialty Sportswear patterns aren’t easy, but that’s for a post when I can show you the finished dress, not the ruined mess.

Over the weekend I sewed a shrug from the Jalie pattern company, pattern #2558. The pattern set me back $10.55, plus shipping from Canada. Shipping wasn’t fast, but I received the pattern about a week and a half after I ordered it. The pattern encompasses everyone from tiny tot to big momma, so you’re getting a value for your Canadian dollar.

The instructions, measurements, and pattern pieces are all printed on one big piece of heavy paper. I don’t recommend unfolding that huge sheet of paper while sewing. Jalie provides a .pdf document on its site with the back-of-the-envelope information as well as sewing instructions and diagrams in both French and English. I was able to take that .pdf printout to the fabric store and buy fabric as well as order online. I kept the printout on my sewing cabinet, too, so I could follow the instructions while I sewed.

The pattern is so easy. The instructions are instructions, not hints. It has just four pieces. The sleeve is sew-around, not set-in. No buttons, no snaps, no invisible-freaking-zippers, and no elastic.

I cut that puppy out on Saturday night, sewed it on Sunday morning, and I’m feeling pretty good again.

Ice Girl loves her dance shrug that I bought locally for $34. That shrug lives in the do-not-destroy area of her closet; it's the one she uses just out on the ice before a competition. The other $34 shrug she bought with her own money, wears constantly, and washes occasionally.

Now she has another shrug to add to the mix and she’ll have one made from black PolarTec fleece, too. That one’s called Christmas.

Bottom line: Yep. I’d buy from Jalie again. The instructions are terrific, the pattern pieces have every possible size, and the finished product looks great. Even better: I feel confident again and I didn’t spend my Sunday cursing and seam ripping.

new skates: diamonds on the soles of her boots

Check out Ice Girl's glitter-ific new boots! The good folks at Rainbo (Renee and Kevin) were just terrific.

We're new to skating, so I had no idea that the varnishing process takes two weeks or that we could have glitter (left), stickers, or Ice Girl's name under the varnish. Very cool.

Half of figure skating's allure might be in the glitter, flash, bling, and crystals.

Newbie: my own theme song

Some of you might remember my earlier blog post about how figure skating is really a small community and eventually everyone starts to know everyone else. That was the post about theme songs and how you should choose a good theme song for yourself, not the theme song to say, Jaws or Psycho. You can find that post here.

You might have spotted the hubris in that post. I thought my theme song might be If I Had a Million Dollars from the Barenaked Ladies because I'm obsessed with figure skating's costs and I dream of a day when I can just thow money at the ice without a care. A big tree fort in the backyard, complete with a mini-fridge, would be cool, too.

Here's the hubris: my theme song is not one I chose, as I had recommended people do. No, no. My theme song is along the lines of Nowhere to Run by Arnold McCuller or If I only Had a Brain by that scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.

Here I am all smart-mouthed, blogging about my experiences with real people. Now real people have found out who I am. That post about Psycho and Jaws isn't nearly as funny when someone I know who knows those two people says to me:

"I know who you are."

Me: deer-in-the-headlights look

Other person: "You're Ice Mom, aren't you."

Me: crap, crap, crap.

Hoo-boy. It's all fun until folks hold you accountable. Well, I'm a big girl and I stand by my advice: try hard to pick your own theme song and make it something you can dance to.

Otherwise, you can be like me and wear a mask everywhere you go. Actually, spy music is pretty cool. Maybe I could have some 007 theme song...