Winter sports enthusiast

As it turns out, Grace really is the New Englander among us.  Steve has been teaching her to ice skate, which she LOVES, and yesterday we tried skiing.  

Ice skating...  first try, with Eli just after Thanksgiving.

More recently, with Emily (and Steve, of course - he's the ice skater extraordinaire!)

So then, for the skiing... We were not at all sure how it would go... like her parents, Grace is uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations and does not like to not be good at things (I have been working on this - re my fake it till you make it approach to meeting new people and my willingness to continue going to bowling parties despite being the worst. bowler. ever.).  We heard about a place in New Hampshire where the beginner area is free to all so I didn't need a lift ticket to take her.  We all packed into the wagon on Sunday morning and headed north.  It is truly the dead of winter here - miles and miles of roads covered in salt and weird chemicals, roadsides of brown/grey slush, and barren trees as far as the eye can see (making it all the easier to note that 4 out of 5 houses in New England are white).  

Despite our misgivings, she was very excited!

Until we hit the "slope".  The attempt before lunch was bad.  It was ugly.  There were crying and hysterics.  Yet, while she refused to listen to anything I said, she did keep demanding to go "faster! faster!" as I skied with her between my legs.  She kind of snowplowed.  We went in, we ate, Steve and I tried to make it sound fun (although Steve decided he would stick with Henry in the lodge and didn't need to have his own experience on day 1 of skiing).

After lunch, we headed out again and she "shuffle shuffled" right on over the magic carpet and was thrilled to go fast back down and show Dad what she had learned.  She was laughing, it was great!  Then she fell on the magic carpet on the way back up.  And we didn't recover that time around.  I tried to ski backward holding her hands, but she was terrified I would hit someone (I've never hit someone skiing backward, forward certainly, but not backward).  A few more tearful trips up and down and we headed in again.  We did manage to work on our "dinosaur star turns" (that makes no sense but it made her laugh so we went with it) and she seemed to grasp the weight-shifting - she even told me to stop telling her which leg to put her weight on.

But then, after some TJ's kettle corn (BRIBERY IS THE KEY TO PARENTHOOD), we headed out one more time.  We got to the top of the magic carpet, and she said "I want to go alone."  Against my better judgment, I let go.  She skied, and then flung herself onto the snow when she wanted to stop.  Over and over.  I kept trying to convince her to snowplow to slow down, but she wanted to ski parallel and crash instead.  She was laughing and having a grand time.  She may have a ways to go on form, but at the end of the day she wanted to go 1) on her own and 2) faster.  So I call success!

I heard another dad saying "I want to see pizza, no french fry legs!" as he chased his kid.  It was a good visual so we've been talking about it.  When I ask Grace how to ski she says "french fries!" and shuffles across the floor with her feet parallel, and then when I ask how to stop, she says "snowplow!"  We may be mixing our metaphors but she's getting the idea.