When I first discussed ice skating with Andrea, I told her we didn't need to make it complicated. We could ice skate pushing both Magnolia and Charlotte around the rink. Both Charlotte and Magnolia are ambulatory but also use wheelchairs for longer distances. Ice skating isn't an easy activity to jump into. It takes a lot of core work, balance, and motor, planning to ice skate. So, while we could have done this the simple way, as evidenced by our matching outfits in all these episodes, we're a bit extra. We wanted to see if we could adapt a more typical experience for her.

Figuring out how to adapt this activity, is probably one of the hardest adaptations I've done. Most of the accessible tools require the use of your hands. Which is great that those are out there, but for someone without hand function, it's trickier. This required some ingenuity and some tears. In the end, I found two different items. The first being a roller skate trainer, and the second being an ice skating training aid , mostly for toddler/preschool age children. The ice skate training aid would have been perfect if Magnolia was smaller but she was too tall for it. The roller skating training aid was the perfect height but didn't have the seat support that the other aide had. We had to buy both to make this work. Along with the two training aides, we bought Skateez to connect to her skates for added stability. Instead of balancing on the blades, she was able to balance with the use of the aides. Three different tools in order to make sure Magnolia was safe. We had also never tried it before we were already there, and not knowing until we got to the rink if this configuration would work was stressful.