I am constantly on the hunt for new things to do. Like most kids, my toddler is infinitely better if we get some time out of the house. In fact, I myself am ALSO infinitely better when I get some time out the the house. So when we got invited to roller skate with my cousins the other weekend, even though I wasn't sure my toddler would like it, I figured we HAD to try it.
My cousins are from North Jersey so we met in the middle at Roller Magic in South Amboy. I looked up the venue and saw that there would be plenty of seating, a snack stand and an arcade. They rent both rollerblades and roller skates on site and the place had the skating vibe that I remember from when I was a little kid. I actually couldn't wait to go and see how I did.
Now I was going to call ahead and see if the place rented skates in my toddler's size, but then my cousin said she had fisher price skates that would fit on his shoes. Turns out-- they were GREAT. He was comfortable in them and couldn't wait to get on the floor and roller skate. He loved seeing all the kids fly by on their own skates and the music and lights in there made the whole vibe exciting.
I got my rented rollerblades on (I used to blade ALL the time in HS) and quickly got my bearings before taking my toddler around the rink. I let him hold the wall while I held his hand and that was enough to keep him stable enough to enjoy skating. He had a few times where he almost fell but I was able to keep him on his feet. He was SO PROUD of himself! You could tell he felt so very cool.
One thing I wish I did differently was bring a helmet for him. The helmets they had were just too big and while it was better than nothing, at that age, I just wanted to make sure he'd be safe for any falls. If I did this again, I would definitely get one in advance so I had it. Most skaters there don't have helmets on but the really little kids my son's age had them.
Once around the rink was pretty tiring for my little dude, so after that he spent a lot of time in the arcade. The arcade they're gives tickets for prizes and my son wanted to earn tickets to get stampers. A few times the machines had a hard time dispensing tickets but the staff was great and would write you a voucher for whatever wasn't coming out. Lucky for us, we ended up with enough tickets to get a few stampers with thanks to our cousins who donated theirs to the little guy.
We ended up being at Roller Magic for two hours and that was really plenty of time. I even think we would go back! As my dude gets older and can skate better, I think we will enjoy it even more. I'm glad we tried this before ice skating because it made me think that I need to wait until he's closer to 4 for ice skating, but who knows. If we get an invite, we might try it!