Skiing-G

We are taking Graeme skiing this weekend. I'm both fearful and excited about how this might turn out. I've skied since about the 7th or 8th grade, which really meant I attached some boards to my boots and slid around the ice-covered hills of central New York until about the 10th grade when I figured that it was much more fun to just hang around the lodge and flirt with the 10th grade boys from other schools. When I was 23 I ditched my job as a commercial underwriter (what a terrible title - just a few letters from being a mortician, which would have been much more lucrative) to be a ski-bum in Colorado which was a great time despite the fact that I left behind a great boyfriend and met up with a psycho one. It was there that I really learned how to ski and then eventually snowboard. I felt really cool doing the latter. For one, I was much better at it (could never master the moguls on skis) and it was at a time when snowboarding still wasn't allowed at all ski areas so it felt really edgy. Side note: I was snowboarding at Ski Liberty a few years ago and one of the 20-something (I seem to have issues with this particular age bracket) stopped me and asked if I'd be willing to sell my snowboard because their shop collected antique Burtons. I drop-kicked him. Anyway, I spent a few years perfecting my skiing, snowboarding, bartending, and drinking skills before deciding I should probably do something else and eventually I ended up in graduate school, then a job with the federal government, a house, mortgage, car payment and two kids. My life used to fit in the back of a pickup and now I need an 18-wheeler and a few PODS. As you can tell I have a lot of emotional energy wrapped up in this skiing thing which makes me all the more cautious about taking Graeme. I want him to have a great time and learn to be a great skier so that we can be uber-cool and take fabulous ski vacations and then he can try out for the Olympics and I can boast about how I was one of the first snowboarders in the West. But, you know, I don't want to pressure him at all or be one of those parents who lives vicariously through their kids and make them miserable in the process. Then again I may be getting ahead of myself if Skiing-G won't budge from the lift, which is an entirely possible outcome. Regardless, I'll post some pictures of him either wearing, standing next to, or throwing the very cute skis we have rented for him and if this is as far as his ski career goes I'll still be proud.