My last year of high school, when I was getting ready to graduate, they gave all of us seniors some form to fill out that included a bunch of psycho-analytical "you are at a crossroads in your life" questions designed to make us feel like we had better be planning for greatness or we were headed for some dead-end job filling popcorn buckets at the movie theater. One of the questions involved providing a list of things you'd never done but you planned on doing sometime in your life.
On the top of my list: Learn to ski.
I had never been skiing at that point in my life, and it just seemed to me a super-glamorous activity that no self-respecting mega-fabulous person would not enjoy.
A couple years later, in college, my future husband and his friends took me on my first trip. Not surprisingly, I sucked at it, and got injured in a really weenie-type way, but I loved it (while also fearing it) and am now hooked. And, if I do say so myself, have developed into a pretty darn good skier. I've black-diamonded in the Italian Alps, for pete's sake.
So of course, Ben and I have a plan to raise our kids into super-fabulous skiers. His first ski trip was at sixteen years of age, mine at nineteen, and the learning curve is pretty tough by that time, when you've already grown into all of your limbs and thought you'd figured out all the weird contorted ways in which you could place your extremities.
But, you start a kid on skis at age 3, and just think of where they could be by age nineteen. We're talking Olympic level awesomeness here.
Travis strapped on his first pair of skis at age 3 (almost 4). Two years later, he's not a wizard on skis, but he can hold himself up and does decently. We're not overly zealous about skiing with the kids, but we do try to take him a few times a year.
So yesterday, we decided to try a mini ski-trip with the boys, for Noah's first skiing adventure.
He started out as a 'wet noodle' on skis, as Ben describes it. But he got better. He was able to balance on his own as I pushed him ahead of me (on flat land), and eventually got to where he had some reasonable equilibrium on his skis.
For me, the trip was pure exhaustion. My legs hurt from squatting down behind a three-year-old for multiple trips down the hill, my mind hurt from the stress of it all, and my head hurt from the lack of decent nutrition (my new thyroid medication is wreaking havoc on my appetite and eating habits....that's a post for another day). But, it was a milestone for me, and part of a lifelong dream in the making -- our little family, going on happy little ski trips, making memories. Just think where we'll be in five years.
Some pictures to commemorate.....
Here's the kids, running away from me, while I'm trying to load them into the truck for our trip.
This is Travis, trying to help me corral Sophie, while Noah makes it farther and farther away.
I did eventually get them in the truck though. We took Sophie to my mom's house -- she's not quite ready yet for us to strap some sticks on her feet and push her down a hill. I felt kind of bad for leaving her behind.
But not for long. She fell asleep within 2 minutes on the road. I don't think she missed us too much.
Here's Noah, getting his bindings set for his first ski trip!!
And Travis
Here they are, ready to get started! They were both super excited!
Noah was so excited, in fact, he decided he could jump. While wearing his skis. Look closely, he's got a tiny bit of air on his right ski.
Huh. Turns out that's not such a good idea.
The batteries in my camera died just after this picture, so I didn't get anything of anyone going down the hill. The boys loved it, and didn't want to stop, and it was a successful venture even if it did completely wear me out. (The title of this blog, by the way, comes from Noah's request to me as Travis and Dad passed by us on the way down the hill.)
Oh, and another thing, Travis is 5 years old for only another two and a half hours. We planned a sledding party for his birthday. See all the snow on the ground in the above pictures? That was yesterday. Today? All melted.
Sledding party cancelled. There's not often I'm disappointed about mild winter weather, but I would have been much more appreciative of this warm front on any other weekend.
No worries though. We're trying for bowling instead.
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