Happy

by Ashley Weeks Cart

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Another triumphant snap of Sunny on a snowy incline. If there were a soundtrack to marry to this kid’s skiing adventures, it’d be Pharrell’s “Happy.” And, yes, I understand what a giant cliché that is, but it’s so fitting for her affect while she’s slipping and sliding downhill.

She and I spent Sunday afternoon skiing together, and we had to take one very long Green Circle around the edge of the mountain to get to the bunny slope chair lift. It took us a full hour. There was lots of falling and clothes-saling (loss of skis, apparel, etc) and face planting. Each time she rose, quietly determined to continue on. Forty-five minutes in, her mood began to falter. Tears started to flow on one particularly hard fall. I reminded her that she was doing so well, and being so brave, and learning so much. Each fall was actually a sign of progress.

I thought her eyeballs might freeze to the roof of her skull.

I was worried that that run would derail her positive feelings toward this winter sport. Learning to ski is a fine balance of fun but also tough learning through falls and spills and slips and twirls. Fortunately, in the home stretch of the hill, she hit her stride and I snapped the above photo as she slid to the finish.

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Fortunately, the bunny slope provided great opportunity for practice and confidence building. By the end of three hours, she had mastered getting on and off the chairlift without any problems, and would zoom down the mountain, easily navigating around other people on the hill. She did not once ask to take a break, so we skied until our tickets allowed.

It was snowing hard, but that didn’t seem to slow her down, even though she was wearing my adult sized goggles, that she quickly abandoned and instead just skied full bore into the snow, mouth wide open, tongue out, catching snowflakes as she flew. As I was beginning to feel the chill, I asked her, “How’re you feeling, kiddo?”

HAPPY!!! 

(And we’ve got the chairlift selfie to prove it).

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We shared genuine moments of laughter – joy where we were on the same page. It’s one thing to extract joy from observing your child in the world and another whole level of awesome to experience a mutual, shared human amusement with your child. At one moment on the chairlift I was nearly blindsided by happiness, and Sunny must have felt it too as she leaned over unexpectedly and kissed me on the cheek. No words exchanged, but world’s communicated.

While my body was physically exhausted from hauling and dragging and schlepping her five year old body around the mountain each time she took a spill, I felt so energized upon arrival home that evening. The therapy of a day out in the snow and cold buzzing down a mountain with my eldest child.