by jove I think she's got it.

IT has been quite a journey. It has taken a lot of false starts, much crying, growling and whining, a lot of crashing, falling down and getting up again, and a fair bit of chocolate consumption (and that was just me), but I think Geekygirl has actually mastered the basics of skiing!

Go Geekygirl!

snow leopard mother

In that time before we had our children, but had decided to have some, I would watch the little kids hurtling down the ski slopes and dream of the days our own offspring would effortlessly imbibe the ability to ski. I realize now that I drew the conclusion that all three year olds could learn to ski from a skewed data set. I wasn't looking at all the kids sitting in the lodge with their nintendos, or the ones howling in the lift line, just at the tiny, fearless superstars.

Geekygirl is struggling with skiing. She had a disastrous lesson last year, too many kids, too close to nap time, she didn't want me to leave, and it was just too much all around for a just turned 4 year old. She gave up after a few minutes, took off her skis and begged me never to send her to ski school again. She finds it very difficult to get her feet into the essential "snowplow" position, so though she has good balance, and enjoys sliding down the hill, she can't stop herself and instead relies on the harness we guide her with. Given that the poor kid has a mother who didn't learn to ride a bike or to swim until she was about nine, and who still can't dive into a swimming pool it's hardly surprising that she doesn't have the best mind over muscle control, I suppose. We are not all destined to be athletes.

We tried ski school again a couple of weeks back with a cohort of friends and their kids. She managed about forty minutes of the three hours we paid for this time, which was an improvement. She managed a 'snowplow' under the guidance of the teacher. I observed the kids for a while, trying but failing to avoid comparing Geekygirl to my friends little girl, the same age, who can already ski quite competently. It isn't a pleasant feeling, the realization that you are envious of the abilities of someone else's child.

Geekygirl seemed happy and engaged though more cautious than the other kids. I didn't think she would notice, so I slunk away to get a bit of skiing in myself. One run later I got a call. Geekygirl had removed her skis and was most emphatically done with the class.

"mummy, I noticed that you left without telling me. That was sneaky" she told me when I quizzed her about the class later in the evening.

It was, rather, I have to admit.

We have been wondering what to do next. We very much want the kids to enjoy skiing as it is such a big part of our lives, but we are realizing that we can't force them to like it. The infamous "tiger mom" article got me thinking. About my needs versus Geekygirl's. About the value of overcoming difficulties. Though I was just as horrified by the article as the majority of the commenting public, a little of her philosophy resonated with me. This was the concept that many worthwhile pursuits are hard to learn, and easy to quit and that it takes a parent to push a little, to get over that initial hump so that the child can ultimately get that wonderful validating feeling of achievement .

Geekygirl was very proud that she managed to snowplow, and that she made it through at least some of the ski class.

We've signed her up for another session tomorrow. I've promised to let her know if I plan on leaving, no sneaking away this time. I'm cautiously optimistic that even if there are tears when we leave her in ski school, she will learn eventually, she will love it and she will thank us for persevering. We're trying a little bit of "snow leopard" parenting. I'll let you know how it goes.

Lake Tahoe from Alpine Meadows

A silent Sunday post

A bluebird day

This is a post for the weekly photo prompt gallery started by Tara at Sticky Fingers;
This weeks theme is 'colour'.

I don't know where the phrase orginated, but here in California when an enormous storm has whirled a couple of feet of fresh snow onto the Sierra Nevada mountains, and then you wake up to that pristine whiteness and blue, blue sky, it is called a "bluebird day".

We woke on Saturday to this vision of blue and white. I took this picture from a cross country ski trail, looking down over the frozen vista of the lodge beside lake Serenity. I like the contrast in scale, the mountains, the cabins, the snow covered pines, and the tiny dots of a family and their dog dragging their sleds across the frozen lake, and a child about to sled down the roof of the little cabin in the foreground

A picture can't really capture the blue of a California mountain sky though. I had never seen a sky like it before I moved here. The word "blue" seems too mundane for something so intense.  I tried "azure, cerulean, and cornflower instead, but even these very lovely words don't quite express what I see. When I look into it I feel that I can see through time out to the boundaries of existance. If I stare hard enough I believe I could absorb some profound information about the physical nature of the universe simply from the colour of the sky.

Before you think I live some kind of idyllic existence with the liberty to ponder at leisure about life, the universe and everything, I should point out that the storm that brought this loveliness played havoc with the driving conditions, and when we arrived our driveway had not been plowed (yes that is how we spell plow in America!), so we had to carry the disoriented kids through three feet of snow into the house, then try to find a spot to park the car where it was at minimal risk of being blindsided by a snowplow. We finally got to bed at 2.30am.

I probably don't need to elaborate upon the effort it took to get two very tired adults, two children and all our gear out of the house the next day to drag our exhaused arses out skiing. You can imagine without me going into detail the tantrums we dealt with as one tired little boy didn't want to sit in his pulk, and an equally exhausted little girl got frustrated with trying to ski but didn't want anyone to help her or even offer sympathy. The beautiful thing about cross country skiing on a bluebird day though is that once you get going you never once think "oh, this was a terrible idea". Sitting in the cabin watching "go diego go" looking longingly out at that blue sky, that would have been a terrible idea.

I took that picture while we ate our sandwiches, and both children slept in their pulks. For those few moments it was just Geekydaddy and I and the marvel of the snowy universe.

Worldless Wednesday: Womens downhill olympic champion 2022?

But will she compete for the USA or the UK?!

The journey is the destination

This is written across the front of one of my cross country ski shirts, and is meant to convey a message about that sport, but I feel it is a good slogan for parenting, or just life in general. I took up cross country skiing when I met Geekydaddy. The first winter that we were dating he paid my share of a ski lease cabin, something he and his friends did every year. He's always been a generous guy. At the time I was a post doctoral fellow with very little disposable income, and he figured if he wanted to see me at all I needed to come up to the cabin. I now know that he was very much hoping I would love the mountains and their associated sports as much as he did. It was a wise move on his part, this was the beginning of a long love affair, with the mountains and with each other.

Geekdaddy is an avid winter sportsman, he skis and snowboards like a pro, having spent most of his youth in Switzerland. We have a fantastic picture of him on the cabin wall,  taken when he was in his late teens, performing a jump from a peak in Verbiere on one of the very first snowboards. I love to downhill ski too,  though I am far less skilled, but I had never tried the cross country "nordic" type of skiing. I don't know many Brits who do. You may have seen it on the winter olympics, men and women in vivid lycra outfits flying along groomed trails with an arm and leg action just like those NordicTrak gym machines. By the end of that first winter I was hooked. The trails, winding peacefully between snow coated pines, reminded me of how I pictured Narnia, when Lucy first walks through the wardrobe into the land where it was 'always winter but never Christmas'. I loved the rhythm of the push and pole movement and the pounding of my heart in the cold air, the struggle to climb the peaks on the flimsy toothpick skis, and the thrill of careening down the hills, barely in control. That first winter I bought a second hand set of skis, boots and poles. Geekydaddy was a little concerned about this level of commitment, though I assured him it was to the sport, not necessarily to him!

Yesterday we got Geekygirl up on cross country skis for the first time. She has experienced the sport before, being towed in a pulk (rather like the sleds used by arctic explorers to pull their supplies across the tundra), but this year we felt she was ready to try under her own steam. The expedition started badly. Though bright, it was a cold day and occasional gusts of wind would whip ice crystals against our faces. The sensation was too much for Geekygirl, and she started to howl. This set her brother off, so I stood at the entrance to the trails holding two wailing children, my supply of tissues decimated after the first five minutes.

My holiday reading of "Raising Your Spirited Child" - a great book if you have such a creature in your life, reminded me that she likely was genuinely overwhelmed by the situation, so I kept my cool, empathized with her, and talked about the plans for the rest of the day while we waited for Geekydaddy to assemble the pulks. We bundled them in, still hysterical, watched by concerned fellow skiers, mainly young couples who were probably silently thinking "God, I'll never have kids". With a supply of blankets, tissues and stuffed animals cocooned into their pods, set off, hoping the motion and the scenery would soothe them (and us!).

It worked. I had forgotten how much I loved the sport, as I felt long unsused muscules stretch and strive, felt my lungs open deeply to capture oxygen in the refined mountain air. The snow was powdery and the pulks glided almost effortlessly, as we pulled our entranced passengers though the forest. They dozed, and we strode on. Before returning to the lodge to eat, we even got Geekygirl up on the little skis we had rented for her. Geekydaddy learned to ski at four, and from the day she was born he has looked forward to teaching his daughter. Things sometimes don't go well between Geekdaddy and his daughter. They frustrate each other, (they are too similar!), he finds her very hard to parent (which she can be), and I was crossing my fingers that this oh so important Father Daughter moment would go well. I left well alone and let him do it his way.

And she loved it. She let him support her, she listened to him, he was encouraging and patient and funny and she got the hang of it. Best of all, after lunch when we asked her if she wanted to ride or ski she said "I want to put my skis on again" and had another try. I noticed her lovely, inward smile of pride at her achievement. Then she was done,  she discarded the skis, and hopped back in the pulk. We did another few laps of the trails, side by side, towing a child each. I looked down at my trusty skis, remembering that first season and casting my mind back over the intervening years. I spoke my thoughts out loud to Geekydaddy.

"Remember when I bought these skis, and you thought I might be making too much of a commitment to you?!"

The journey is the destination.