"Oh, no! Mommy's Going to Fall Over, Again!"

A couple of days ago, inspired by the sunny, spring weather, I thought it would be fun to push the girls in the double stroller while I rollerbladed. We drove to a nearby open-space park with a well-kept path. We got off to a tough start because Olivia protested riding in the stroller with her sister. This is a stroller that doubles as a bike trailer, and isn't really designed for comfort. Therefore, when both the girls sit in it, Sophia leans on her sister while pulling her hair and poking her in the face. Understandably, Olivia doesn't care for this. After some coercing, I got both girls buckled into the stroller, and we were off. We had gone about half a mile, when Olivia asked to go down a rather steep hill. My first instinct was to say no. Unfortunately, I didn't stick with that. I thought, I have a brake on my skate... I'm a fairly seasoned skater... I've gone down that hill a gazillion times on my own... Let's give it try. Just as we started down the hill, some people near by were pointing at a coyote that was running in the direction that we were going. So, I'm distracted, wondering if we should be traveling in the direction of a wild coyote, when I feel my skate get caught on something and I can't turn to follow the curve of the path. I didn't realize it at the time, but my skate was caught on the break cable that I usually clip up and out of the way so that it doesn't drag on the ground. For some unknown reason, I forgot to clip it out of the way this time. Because of the hill, we were going just fast enough that I didn't really have time to try to get my skate loose, so instead I tried to veer off the path and onto the grass. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to maintain my balance through all of this and fell and hit the pavement pretty hard while pulling the stroller over with me. I didn't really take the time to think about it I was okay, although I was definitely feeling pain, because I wanted to make sure that the girls were okay. They stayed buckled in, but had fallen on top of each other. They were both crying, but I think it was because they were more scared than hurt. A man was kind enough to run over and make sure we were all okay. After taking off my skates that were covered in mud, I held Sophia to calm her down. Because of the mud, my skates were out of commission and I had to walk about a half mile back to the car in my socks. Olivia decided she wanted to walk most of the way. At one point, as I was walking I bent over to pick something up and Olivia said, "Oh no! Mommy's going to fall over again!" I thought that was pretty funny. After a couple of visits to the chiropractor I'm thinking that in a couple of weeks I'll be ready to try rollerblading with the girls again. I've rollerbladed with each of them separately without any problems, but this was the firstl time I tried it with both of them in the double stroller. I'm hoping that this experience didn't traumatize them so much that they won't want to try again. Next time I plan to make sure the break cable is out of the way and we will stay on level ground.