Our Ski Trip

We spent Sunday, Monday, and today on our annual Jiminy Peak trip with friends. We returned a few hours ago, and I’ve literally been stumbling around due to exhaustion. As in, I tripped on our duffel bag handle and landed on my face, and moments later I fell down the stairs while carrying 3 pairs of ski boots. Lucky for me they were the carpeted stairs down to our basement instead of our steep, old, wooden stairs that strike fear into the hearts of visiting mothers with toddlers.

M, who is an unbelievably motivated maniac, managed to finish all the schoolwork that she missed in time to hustle off to soccer practice tonight. In fact, she was hoping to go to another soccer thing that she normally does–which would have been a whopping 2 1/2 hours of soccer after skiing for most of the day–but she had to finish her homework first, so she missed the first hour.  I don’t think that she’ll collapse on the gym floor, but I am a little worried that there will be sobbing before she finally passes out tonight. We usually walk the couple of blocks to the school gym, but Cute W’s driving her home. J, meanwhile, fell asleep in the car on the way home, continued the nap on the couch, and was only roused by the scent of take-out Italian food. She ate three helpings of pasta and settled in for yet another Harry Potter reading marathon (we’re now on #3 with her) before bed.

Our weekend was great, especially considering that there was serious rain last night. The girls spent most of the day on Monday in ski school, and they had a wonderful time. Prior to the drop-off, there was a bit of high drama because they have one girlfriend who also attends the daylong class, so each girl was hoping that she’d be placed with a friend and fearing that she’d be left out. They’re pretty close, ability-wise, but you just never know, and you want them to feel comfortable skiing at the right level. There was also speculation about the placement, because last year the two older girls had been told that they’d be in the Fox group. Jiminy used to place kids in groups named after various woodland creatures. If you’d done your time as an undignified Chipmunk or Raccoon, of course you’d be psyched to finally become a Fox. When I broke it to them that the ranking system was different now, both girls were in denial, so I just did the old motherly, “Well, we’ll see. . . .” Really, it makes sense. If some 11-year-old first time skier got called a Chipmunk they’d basically be opposed to the entire program immediately, I bet.

Ski School was a tremendous success. All three girls (and only our three girls) were with one teacher whom they liked very much. And they were thrilled because he took them on black diamonds, so they officially feel like The Most Awesome Skiers Ever.

There was a lot of that girl power thing going around. At one point J stopped next to me and laughed out loud, saying, “I can’t believe that I’m still alive.” I promise that we weren’t particularly defying death on that run. But seriously, how much happier would your life be if you took a moment any old time to laugh out loud with joy that you’re still alive? We should all try it, maybe. Another time, I was skiing with a bunch of girls (we just happened to have a girl-heavy group), and a middle-schooler who’d been a bit hesitant about skiing down a black diamond decided to try, anyway (not surprising, since the two 4th graders were game). When the hardest part was over, I told her to stop and look up. It appeared much scarier from below, probably because you could see a greater expanse of the whole slope. “Now, aren’t you impressed with yourself?” I prodded. “You know what?” she answered, “I really am. I really, really am impressed with myself.”

After so much rain last night, I expected today to be a washout, but conditions were surprisingly good. Nothing froze, trails were groomed, and the temperature hovered just around freezing, keeping us all warm and cozy without melting the slopes entirely.

Between all of that skiing the kids swam in the pool, I learned how to play one of Cute W’s new board games, and we all ate a ridiculous amount of food. Now it’s back to real life again. But you know what? Real life’s pretty good, too.