Ski Lessons

All three of the kids were in ski lessons last week. Tanner and Faith were in a small group together in the Mighty Mites program at Bogus and Jake was in a larger group learning to snowboard. They had lessons from 945-12 Thurs, Fri, Sat, and Sun. This was a huge commitment as it meant we left the house each day at 8AM and by the time we had lunch at the lodge, changed into "napping clothes" for the ride home, and drove back down the mountain it was 2PM.

Originally we had signed up to do lessons in February- one lesson each week on Sundays- but when we were given the gift of a trip to Hawaii mid-Feb we changed plans and this was the only session left. It made for a crazy week but it was also a lot of fun. I have of course always been proud of my kiddos but after seeing them in action this week on the slopes- their willingness to try and to persevere through the extremely cold weather (2 degrees for Thurs/Fri!) I have even more respect for them.

We were all exhausted each afternoon and spent the remainder of each day playing Wii, watching football, and coloring quietly at the table. Brian and I even napped each day- I love that the kids are old enough now to just take care of themselves for an hour!! It definitely wore us all out. The prep for getting all three kids ready for lessons, the car packed, mittens sorted, jackets on, boots on, helmets on, hand warmers in, skis dropped off, etc.... was huge.

On Thursday we dropped Faith and Tanner at the Mouse House expecting some tears or trepidation but they both seemed happy as clams. Jake, of course, was raring to go and had no qualms about his lesson. After getting them all to the right spots, Brian and I headed inside to watch from the warmth of the lodge where they wouldn't be able to see us.

We saw Faith and Tanner trudging out of the Mouse House holding their instructor's hand, bundled up tightly so with hats and gloves and turtlenecks and goggles that only their chins were visible. Right away Faith started to cry. We could see her sobbing. The instructor kept bending down to hug her and comfort her and we watched, hoping it would get better. Tanner, on the other hand, got right into the swing of things and did everything the instructor showed him with no fear. After watching from afar for a few minutes we headed outside. We tried to hide so Faith wouldn't see us and we listened to her crying "I want my Mama! Please let me go inside to see my Mama!". Yeah, that was hard to see and not jump in to fix. She was clearly miserable- but I figured if I rescued her that first day she would never go back the next day and maybe not even next year without trepidation so I surreptitiously took her teacher aside and was told to go inside, not let her see me, and know that she would be just fine, that there were always one or two that cried the first day. OK. So I headed inside to watch from afar.

She cried the entire two hours. Never stopped. However, when Brian picked her up at noon and asked how it was, she said, "Good!". I found out later she only said that because she thought she was done and didn't realize she had three more days to go. Tanner said he loved it and Jake, even though he spent a lot of the time on the ground, said he loved it, too.

Days 2,3,4 were WAY better. No tears from Faith. She ended up loving it and even asked me this morning if we could go skiing again today. The instructors were so amazing with the kids and Tanner I guess was really really helpful with his sister. After the first day his teacher wanted to put him in a higher level class because he was doing so well, but Tanner wanted to stay in the same group so he could help Faith. They are still so sweet together, those two.

Jake's snowboard "report card" that they gave us gave him a glowing review- especially for being the youngest in class by far. Both Tanner and Jake sobbed last night, saying that they missed their teachers and were so sad that they would never ever see them again. Tanner insisted on sleeping with his skiing "report card" that had a picture of his ski group in it. The drama gene is clearly alive and well in our middle son, too.

So now our next step is to figure out how to actually ski with the kids- being outnumbered it is a little tricky. Our plan is to take Grandma up with us this month. Brian will snowboard with Jake while I take turns skiing on the little slope with Tanner and Faith. Mom can entertain whoever is not skiing at any particular time in the lodge. We'll see how it goes and evaluate if it is something I can do on my own with the two little ones.