Love These Exhausting Days

We were in bed tonight by 7:45, just completely exhausted from skiing all day with the kids. They conked out easily before 8:00pm they are so tired. I'm still up doing "homework" but Ric is snoring loudly beside me, having only gotten half way through the day's crossword puzzle. It's so lovely.

It was a beautiful sunny day, no wind, not too cold or too hot. The perfect day to ski with the little ones who so easily sometimes are cold, hot, wind-blown, or just irritable. It was so nice we were out until 4:00pm, the longest ski day ever and they were wanting "just one more run" by the end of it. Actually it was mostly Evelyn, she was the last one in from the mountain. Today she turned a corner and with a little nudging from Mom at the end of the day, she skiied down past the line for the magic carpet and continued to the end were the beginners' chair lift is. (Let me say that I use the term "skiing" lightly here as mainly she just points her skis down and goes, straight, down, fast.) Once I convinced her that I could lift her on the chair and she'd be ok, she let me take her. Before we got half way up, she was saying "That was the best run ever!" "I love skiing!" This from a girl who wouldn't do more than 2 runs down the little magic carpet, no matter how much begging I did.

And the best part was: she rode the chair for Mom.

See, there's something about Evelyn and her Daddy. She LOVES her Daddy and will do just about anything he asks. Mom, however that's a different story. We have lots of fun, we love each other so much it spills over, but there's just something really special about her daddy. So since she's started skiing, she'll go all the way for Dad but woudn't even ski for me on some days. In all my infinite patience, I'd ride her up the gondola, making sure all of her clothing was on right, straight, not too tight, not too loose, carried skis (2 pair, plus my poles) from the gondola to the magic carpet. We'd get all the way there and she'd sit down on the snow and start to cry, declaring that she didn't want to ski and she was done. (We hadn't even started!) I'd wanted to scream, to grab the nearest stranger next to me and say "DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?" But I didn't. That particular day I just marched her back to the gondola (carrying skis, poles), back to the condo (skis, poles, heavy), changed all out of the clothes that took about 40 minutes to get her in in the first place, and we went out for hot chocolate. I'd secretly vowed that her Daddy could teach her to ski. Not me.

But today, it was all different, she skied for me. And she did great, and she had fun and I had fun.

It was a great day.