Skiing holds a special place in my heart. I met my husband Derek on a ski trip way back in 1992 when we were both members of the U of A Ski Club. We did a lot of skiing together before we were married. We decided to start a family eight years ago on a ski trip to Panorama, and now we have both of our kids on skis.
The skiing life is just such a fantastic way to live. We get up every day and head outside for 4 or 5 hours of fresh air and exercise. There's time for the hot tub, swimming, or relaxing before a hearty supper, and then then you can read, watch a movie, do some school work, play a board game, and then sleep like a rock until you get up and do it all over again. We were gone for 6 full days of skiing, and I didn't have the slightest desire to come home.
My 7-year-old daughter is amazing on skis. She started as a beginner on Monday, and by Saturday, she was riding up the quad chair with her dad, skiing down the blue square runs (that's intermediate, in case you don't know). She can even ride the chair lift by herself. I just love seeing how happy and proud she is and how much fun she is having.
My 4-year-old son did pretty well this week, too. At first, he was very floppy and clingy and wouldn't stand up unless he held my hand or my ski poles. I wasn't sure if I should push him harder or put him into a lesson or what to do with him. I decided to just do things his
way (that's the attachment parent unschooler coming out in me) and by the end of the week he was standing up much better on his skis, and he even wanted to let go of my poles and glide down on his own sometimes. He has a really great attitude about skiing: he wanted to head out every day and he had great stamina. He was willing to stay out there for a couple of hours before heading back. He LOVED it when Derek or I would hold him and go really fast. He would laugh and screech and shout "Yee Haw Horsie" all the way down the hill.
After all that fresh air and exercise, I am starting to feel really good again. I was feeling like a big fat slug for a while, and not really sure what to do about it. I go for walks and I run on the
treadmill, but I am always, constantly battling with my weight and my food addictions. The situation improves on vacations. Our vacations usually involve a lot of skiing or hiking or some kind of physical, outdoorsy activities, and I always feel great by the end of it.
Maybe what I need to do is change my life around to make it more like vacations. It feels so good to get outside right away in the morning. I want to head out for a long hike or a long bike ride or something. I always thought that we have to get our school work done first, but
maybe we could do it in the late afternoon or after supper. All the regular school kids have homework to do at night, so maybe that's when we should do our work, too. Actually, I have a really great school schedule forming in my head already:
- get up with ds and do school work with him first
- get dd out of bed
- head outside with kids for some big outdoor activity: hiking, skiing,
- toboganning, cycling, swimming....
- come back home for relaxation & quiet reading time
- do some serious school work for an hour before or after supper
- play board games, do lego projects, etc until bed time
I had this fantasy that we would do that today, but it totally didn't work out. It's still winter here, and Edmonton is pretty flat - no ski hill in my back yard. I did manage to drag the kids for a walk around the block, but that isn't going to do much for my fitness level. It will get a little easier in the spring and summer, but it's still hard to get a good workout with small kids in tow. Maybe if I just add a 15 minute treadmill session to the morning, it will be enough.
I have lots more to talk about, but so little time. It's already 11:30pm. Derek is away in San Francisco for the Game Developer's Conference, so I need to be on my toes this week in order to handle everything alone.
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