Mastering “The Pizza” : Blog a la Cart

Who is this confident, mature, ebullient girl and where the heck is my Mohawk Baby?!

I have to confess, I expected Sunny to loathe skiing. While she’s always been a relatively easy-going kid, she can be a bit of a whiner. When frustrated, she’s apt to whimper and whine and throw up her hands in defeat. Given that clothing in particular often causes much distress, I figured that the discomfort of snow boots coupled with the cold and the difficulty of learning to navigate a slippery incline on two skinny planks would be the kiss of death for her ski career.

How very very wrong I was. And how willing and happy I am to admit that.

Sunny did not have school on Friday, so I signed her up for a day long ski lesson at our local mountain. We’ve been talking about teaching her to ski for years, and it finally felt like she was ready. I could work from the lodge while we gave her a chance to try out this winter sport. As the kids get older, I’ve had high hopes that skiing might be a fun family activity that we could do each weekend to make the cold and grey more tolerable. But first, we need to see if our children enjoy it.

We were fortunate that the weather was ideal (that 30 degrees with sun that makes my mood soar), and Sunny’s class was just her and two other kids.

Six hours of skiing is a lot for a first timer, especially a five year old, and yet when I arrived to pick her up from the lesson, she begged to put back on her skis and keep at it for the extra hour she was allowed to play solo. Full of smiles and joy, it could not have been a more successful day.

Only problem is that skiing is certainly not inexpensive, so we need to do some financial planning so we can work this into the rest of her winter. But it’s given us great ideas for next year, and we’ll definitely plan accordingly so we can get as much time on the mountain as weather will allow.

I was so proud of her resilience and positive attitude. How I underestimated her.

Skiing really is such fun.