Ski Day

Originally uploaded by kjda

Enough cannot be said about how out of the woods we are with adoption and toddler-hood, etc. Wyatt is the youngest, at four, and he can: put his own ski gear on, get up when he falls, ride the jbar, get on a slowed down chair lift, and carry his boots and skis, thanks to the magnificent thing that is the boot/helmet backpack. Now, if you don’t ski, this all sounds just crazy. But the point is–if he can do this, we can do ANYTHING.

We can walk through parking lots, go to crowded places, ride airplanes, eat out, shop, visit parks, spend an afternoon at home without any planned activity, and while things don’t ever go perfectly, I do not end the experience feeling like I would have rather had a root canal. This is a massive improvement.

We always did those things, of course. If we’d looked at 2-year old Wyatt or 3- and 4- year old Rory this year and thought, oh, well, we just can’t do that, I don’t think we’d be here yet. But we persevered through the root canal meals and the on-slope meltdowns and the airplane trips from hell, and now we get the payoff–and what this tells me is, time to keep going.

It’s a PAIN to have them pack their lunches and put on all their own gear and forget things and move more slowly than I can carry them and whatnot. But if I jump in, I’ll be jumping in for longer than I should. I’m a new convert to the anything you can do, you should do school of thought (for them, not me!). With a couple of exceptions…I put on hockey gear for Wyatt and Rory, because I just can’t stand and wait that long. Rob makes breakfast because he’s up, and he will, and even if Lily and Sam would be fine, we’d clean up a lot of spilled milk. I know they’d learn, and they will. But we don’t have to do everything at once.I know, because we’re so happy with the stuff they DO do, that we’re not going to stop looking for more.

KJ Dell’Antonia
sent from my iPhone