Thursday, February 20, 2014

team ski









Winter continues to slog along at her relentless, icy pace.  Our weeks are full, our nights early.  My repetoire of soup recipes continues to expand and improve.  I have immense gratitude for our hot tub.

The weekends are dominated by skiing.  Watching Eliana's joy and confidence grow for this wild sport continues to fill me with pride.  We took the opportunity this weekend to head east beyond our local ski hill so that we could head to an area where Soli and I might find a bit of success.  While Eliana complained that the runs were too easy and became frustrated with me because I would make her wait for me at the bottom of each hill, I finally had the chance to experience the pure of joy of watching my daughter on the snow.  She would fly in front of me, taking funny little detours that totally freak me out, heading off jumps, arms outstretched like she's flying.  At one point, she went so far in front of me, I could no longer see her.  Like I said, this isn't the mountain that she's familiar with and I didn't want her to feel panicked or lost without me.  Indeed, I think I was the one panicking.  I continued to move slowly down the hill, annoyed with my wide, cautious turns, annoyed with my child's wild abandon, her fearless speed.  I told myself to speed up, that this was my daughter, lost perhaps on this cold, unknown mountain.  Couldn't I go fast just this once?  What the hell is my problem?

And there she was, skiing through a patch of trees, pink snowpants and white, retro jacket.  Come on, Mom!  I've been waiting for like hours! So we established some ground rules about waiting.  I tossed around some big words like respect, like patience.  I worked through my issues and she worked through hers. All the while, Soli and his dad were having their own breakthroughs.  My little prince is now a prince of skiing.  No more leash, mo more double power snowplow between our legs, Soli has found his groove.  So I guess it's official.  They are skiers.  And I'm sort of their ski groupie.



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