You know how as a parent of more than one child, you have rules or parameters about certain things when your first child does something?

And you know how those rules and parameters morph a bit, become more or less restrictive, when parental wisdom gained from experience causes you to reevaluate the rules?

And you know how that usually happens when the next child approaches the same age as the older one and wants to do the same thing?

About six months ago, our 13-year-old wanted to attend a “skate party” at our local skating rink. Knowing how incredibly hard that floor is, we agreed she could go if she would wear a helmet.

We weren’t out to humiliate her. Head injuries are scary. Taking into consideration that skating is not her best skill, it didn’t seem too unreasonable a stipulation for us to make.

Well, I mention all of this because our 11-year-old has been invited to go skating this weekend at the same place. And we’re not requiring that he wear a helmet. And he’s not a great skater, either.

I don’t quite know what happened between last December and today, but my husband’s question over the phone as we discussed this was, “So, do they wear helmets there, or not?”

At which point I started giggling…uncontrollably…remembering our teen daughter’s acquiescence last December despite the impending humiliation. “No, they don’t,” I told him, laughing harder than I should have been.

Our 13-year-old is not laughing. The expression on her face was indescribable when she heard we were not stipulating that her younger brother wear a helmet to the skating rink.

She had agreed to our stipulation and did indeed wear her helmet at the skating rink. She said people kind of laughed, but she didn’t see it as a negotiable point. She kept her end of the agreement even though we would have been none the wiser had she not.

She’s actually being a great sport about this. She said behind a smile that she’ll “never live it down” and she’s telling me to stop laughing. I wonder whether she’s not too angry because earlier today, before all of this happened, she had been riding the razor scooter outside and came inside asking where the “snow-sports crash helmet” was. It made me laugh that she called it a “crash” helmet.

I cannot stop laughing. No, not laughing at her…laughing at myself. I feel so…I can’t define what makes this so funny to me. I just know I’m not laughing at her.

I wonder if anyone took a picture for the yearbook.

© Alexa Lopez 2008