It was planned - we made the reservation at a ski resort to go snowboarding and have it be a momma and son date. I'm not going to pretend that this was an easy thing to do because a lot of pieces had to fall into place, like the weather, the baby and who would watch her while my son and I were out learning, and could we arrange it through the week when there wasn't school that works with my husband's schedule.
(I know I need to find a babysitter but I've avoided this since my son was born but I am now realizing it would be good to find someone that we trust and is good with both our kids.)
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| Learning some of the basics, like stopping. |
Our day finally arrived and we are both pumped to leave, I packed the baby's bag with extra everything and packed a duffel bag for my son and I with extra gloves, hats, snow pants, and extra socks. We finally were on our way and about 35 minutes into the one hour and a half trip, my son says his stomach is hurting, my husband thought maybe he just needed to go the bathroom. Less than 5 minutes and he said it's really bad and started to burp, I got a little excited and told my husband to pull over, pull over. We almost got there in time - ALMOST! Okay so now there's throw up on my son's shirt, pants, booster seat, car seat, and the floor. My husband pulled him out far enough for the second round but the first round was far worse than the second. At this point my husband and I were discussing that we need to forget snowboarding and go to our local MedExpress, our son, who hears everything screams, "NO, I want to go snowboarding, you said we could, I want to go!" I turned around to tell him if he's sick we will go another day but just as this was starting to come out of my mouth I noticed he had his full color back and was smiling ear to ear. It amazes me that once kids throw up their stomachs can instantly feel better.
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| Smiles while riding the lift. |
So then we were once again on our way but the clothes were an issue, they were wet and stinky and of course, we had driven past all the places we could have easily exited to get new ones. If we had to drive into Somerset to go to a store, we would be late but he can't wear the outfit he has on and the only store I know of that we would pass is a dollar store. You have to love smartphones because I found the number, called and asked the store associate if they had a pair of pants and a shirt in my son's size - anything will work as long as it fits. I explained he got sick and I was in need of something, I could actually hear her smile through the phone when she informed me that they had something that would work.
When we pulled into the store's parking lot, I ran in to grab the clothing and a box of crackers because I thought the little guy might need something in his stomach before he physically exhausts himself outside. The store associate had a smile on her face as she totaled up my purchases and offered me the best of luck for the rest of the day. Yes, we all needed it. I did fail to mention that our baby girl only slept a little on our trip and screamed the majority of the drive, which is normal but added a little more stress.
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Little snowboarder - stopping for me to
take a picture with the sun in his eyes. |
We arrived at the resort and checked in with the rental equipment office where they gave us instructions on what to get and guided us to the boot rental station. As we were waiting on the guy to get our boots I told my son he needed to get his snow pants on and all of the other layers so he'd be ready for the boots. He and I both struggled to get into the boots, keep in mind that the baby is screaming for me to hold her instead of her daddy but I needed both hands to get dressed and squeeze into the frustrating boots. Try if you can to picture it, everyone is a little frayed from the trip and the baby won't stop screaming, and we are desperately trying to get dressed - fast. We awkwardly walk in the boots over to get the board rental station, the nice, polite girl brings out skis. I mention that we were going to snowboard. "Oh, well you have the wrong boots," she says. Back to the boots area to get the right ones. Did I mention that because the baby was so mad, she now needs changed again? After we finally got the right boots and the boards I realized I had never been so happy to get out in the freezing weather. My son loves the cold weather so I knew he'd be more relaxed outside than inside.
My son asked if we could try to snowboard while we waited on our instructor, we purchased an hour session for both of us to learn. Sure, let's try it - scooting and sliding around on a relatively flat surface. He was more confident than I was, but he has a much shorter distance to fall than I do, right?!
Our instructor walked over and asked if we were ready, he also asked me if I wanted to learn or if I wanted my son to learn because we couldn't both learn at the same time. Obviously different teaching instructions. There was no doubt that I wanted my son to learn, but I wanted to learn too, I thought that's what I purchased; but we could deal with that later because this was all about the little guy. For an hour, he listened, tried to do whatever the instructor told him, and gave it his best. He was smiling, laughing, and now and then throwing a snow ball at me. He loved it and did amazingly well for his first time. He finished and we went inside to find the baby sister and dad to get some lunch.
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Baby and Daddy
(baby girl refusing to look at the camera) |
He told my husband how they played 'red light, green light' down the mountain so he could learn to stop and start and how much he liked boarding. My husband asked me why I didn't learn and I explained the situation at the beginning. After lunch as I went into the corner of the bathroom to nurse the baby girl my husband went to the rental place to talk to the instructors and explain that we wanted to both learn. He worked it out that I would also get a lesson after the lunch hour. Please keep in mind that he had a screaming little girl that wanted her momma to hold her for the past hour and he managed to stay pretty calm, cool, and collected.
My son watched my lesson and was anxious to get back out there, so as soon as I was finished he wanted to go back to the top of the mountain. We made a couple more trips, digging in his heels and toes to play the 'red light, green light' game. After those couple trips he was pretty exhausted so we called it an extremely successful day.
And a special thanks to daddy because he took a day off work to watch the screaming little one while my son and I got to have fun.
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