Skiing-G Part 2

Our ski weekend experiment was a success! We don't have any "action" shots, but I'm happy to report that Graeme seemed to like skiing. It took about an hour for me to figure out how to "teach" a toddler to ski. Ski equipment, boots in particular, are cumbersome at best and down-right dangerous at times. Graeme doesn't always want to walk on his own in slippers, let alone boots that weigh half as much as he does. And, when Graeme doesn't want to do something...forget it. It's like pushing a rock up a hill. Why the bunny slope is located a good 100 yards from the ticket line is beyond me, but after a lot of deep-breathing and breaks we managed to get ourselves and our equipment to the base of the bunny slope without any tears or bribes. An accomplishment in and of itself. I then thought, "now what, smarty pants." We proceeded to move around on the skis and walked in the boots and then Graeme lay down on his back and said "I want to go home." Sigh. Steve suggested we revise our goal to be just getting on the lift. Good idea, daddy. Graeme was excited to go on the "ride." However, he really couldn't move at all in skis and I'm not exactly a graceful swan myself with 5 foot boards on my feet. But, we managed to slide and move to the front of the line, though by this time I was sweating buckets and my upper-body was aching. Once on the "ride" Graeme was thrilled. We managed to dismount with ease. At this point I'd picked up some tidbits from watching a few other parents teach their toddlers. And, I fielded about a dozen different questions about Graeme's age and comments about how brave we were (or completely nuts, as they were probably really thinking). So, I swung Graeme between my legs, told him to make a slice of pizza with his legs (oh yeah, he doesn't eat pizza), put my own legs into a familiar wedge position and off we went! He lllloooovvveeeddd it. My quads were SCREAMING, but we had a blast! We rode the ride 3 times before it was time to get back to Ian (who was entertaining my dad and his wife back at the house). At one point Graeme was singing Frosty the Snowman as we went down the hill. It was adorable and I was excited. Maybe those Olympic dreams aren't so crazy afterall!