Ellie has a new favorite sport: skiing. Our ward actually had a night-skiing activity for free. The weird thing is it was Highland 11th + Bringhurst Ward who rented the hill that night (Barrie & Hal Jensen are good friends). So we get out there and even thought I haven't skied forever I know how to backwards pizza and I decide I can teach Ellie how to ski. So we go down the side of Aspen and she is being IMPOSSIBLE. She's not following instructions or listening and she's just flopping all over me and crying and whining or just laughing. If she just woulda actually done what I had told her to she would have been skiing fine. Well by the time we got to the bottom of the hill I was so DONE with her. I told Darik he was in charge of getting his daughter to the top of the hill. I ski off. Problem is? Darik's definition of teaching her how to ski is to get behind her, set her down in the snow, and push her down the hill. Good thing we had edgie-wedgies, huh? Anyways, I was not aware this was his MO, so I get to the top of the hill with Brooke, ski about 20 yards below the lift and wait for Elle & D. 
The picture on the left is me waiting for them to come off the lift. The hill is a little steep here -- and I'm just taking a break. All of a sudden I see my husband put my baby girl on the frozen snow and just push her in my general direction. My ski tips are pointed to the left and I start panicking when she's about halfway to me when her skis veer to the right away from me and down the whole hill (also towards the huge poles holding up the ski lift that don't have padding on them and are surrounded by other various electircal boxes and poles). By the time I have to react she's out of my reach and starting to fly by me at 30 MPH. So what do I do? I stab her with my ski pole to stop her. Of course, what any normal mother would do. There's my baby; terrified, sobbing, with ice burnt hands from when her mittens came off. She seriously could have gotten VERY hurt. So as Darik comes boarding up he cannot fathom why I am upset at ALL! "What's the big deal? She's ok isn't she?" Ohhhh, I was SOOOOOO mad. 
I spend the next 10 minutes trying to get us both safely down to the lodge until I finally just pop both of our skis off and leave them on the mountain and walk down. Darik decides to help by trying to intercept us as we're walking down the stairs and offering to hold her. Here we are, surrounded by present and past ward members when I say, "Get the HELL away from my daughter!"
I'm glad we can all laugh about this now.
I had decided that Ellie was done with skiing and I would lodge it with her the rest of the night. But our good friend and kid-teaching-expert Hal had been looking forward to teaching Ellie so a while later D comes in and says Hal's ready to teach Ellie. I say "NO WAY" at the same time Ellie says, "YAY!" Ooookay. So apparently that little fiasco hasn't scared my little baby so badly she's ready to hop back on the horse. So we take 20 minutes dressing both of us back up to get ready for Ellie's ski lessons. Hal had already taught all of Ellie's little friends hours earlier and the bunny hill was now full of 3 year olds skiing down the whole hill, pizza style, and turning on their own. So here comes Hal, who does *exactly* what I had done 2 hours earlier. But lo and behold, guess who follows instructions to a t? None other than our little Ellie. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill our little Red was skiing, stopping, and turning on her own. Unfortunately, when we got to the bottom of the hill they told us it was the last ride up and the lift was closing in 3 minutes.
All's well that ends well, right?
p.s. My least favorite part of the night? Other than my daughter almost dying? Here I am a 28 year old, and all the ski lift operators kept on calling all the 14 yo old young women in the lift lines "my daughter." Uughhh. Don't you think I was closer to being the girl they're supposed to be "checking out" instead of calling me the mother of a 14yo??! That was not a fun wake up call for me :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment