It's the effort that counts, right?

Last night at his skating lesson, Liam got his first term report card. His lessons are through the local figure skating club, and they follow the CanSkate program. There's a sequence to the teaching in this program, and badges you can earn for mastering each skill. Which sounds great, except that after four months of skating, Liam only had one check mark in the very first box - he can balance on two feet. He did not earn the 'march in place' check mark, nor did he get the 'walk forward (duck walk)' check mark (which I think he is close to getting, especially since they did away with his chair completely last night - he can function fine without it, but if it's offered then of course he will take it!)

I don't have the report card handy right now, but suffice to to say that there are at least a dozen skills, if not two dozen, that he needs to master in order to get his first badge. So the fact that we only have one check mark instead of two is pretty irrelevent. Remember back in September when I was saying how I couldn't believe skating lessons were 26 weeks long? Well, I take that back. Now, I can't believe they are only 26 weeks long. At this rate Liam will be a teenager before he earns his first badge, and by then I'm sure the novelty of badge-earning will have worn off.