There is only one activity that tests your patience more than taking the kids to Walt Disney World, the Magic Kingdom of Lies.
Taking them skiing.
I would rather use pinecones as tampons than take the kids back to Disney. The place is booby-trapped with rides you had no idea would be so frightening to children, the wait-to-fun ratio is way out of balance, getting from one park to another is like crossing the Kalahari and our credit card felt like it had been waterboarded by the end. They will never see the inside of a slow-moving motorized boat again.
The mountains are a different story.
This winter, we rented a house in the Poconos with three other families near Jack Frost/Big Boulder. Over winter break, we took the boys up for a week to learn to snowboard.
The kids know how to ski. But when we went to rent equipment for the season in October, Ezra asked to snowboard and I encouraged Maxon to learn as well.
Why would I do that, my wise husband asked, when they already learned to ski?
Michael may not have remembered what it was like to ski with Maxon, but I did. It was a never-ending chorus of kvetch, because the boots felt too tight or made his socks bunchy or were heavy and too hard to walk in and the skis kept falling out of his arms and he didn't want to carry them and hereally hated skiing. I didn't want to spend winter on the mountain with Kvetchy McGee on skis.
I had learned to snowboard a few years ago. I spent the first several lessons falling as if I had been thrown from a five-story window and dislodging most of my internal organs. But after a few days, it clicked. Snowboard equipment is more comfortable, and there is only one thing to carry. Since Maxon's issues seemed mainly tactile, I was certain that changing the equipment would change the attitude.
Feel free to laugh at my naiveté.
The first day on Camelback, their snowboard lesson was the only hour of peace, sandwiched between arguments over how many layers to wear and tucking in the long johns just right so they didn't feel weird, renting new snowboard boots since their feet grew since October, trying to convince Maxon that a balaclava would keep his head warm and stop the helmet from annoying him, saying "no" six times to requests to leave the mountain, snapping at Maxon for his constant complaining and subsequently fighting with my husband.
Because nothing gets you in a romantic mood like whiny kids who won't cooperate.
The second day wasn't much better – especially since Michael drove back to Philly for work. Before he left, he told me he had a conversation with Maxon about his attitude. I booked them a private lesson from 1-3 p.m., which I desperately needed by the time we pulled up to the Jack Frost parking lot.
But when we boarded together for the last hour, I noticed that not only was Maxon not complaining, he seemed to have the hang of it and was saying things like, "I love this. It is so fun." I wasn't altogether sure he was telling me the truth, since he was saying those words in a Steven Wright tone, but I didn't care. I saw his effort and I appreciated it.
Ezra was another story. He didn't have the right form and was falling every time he stopped. Since he wouldn't take the hand warmers I offered 12 times, his hands were icy, and he was howling like a feral cat and begging to switch back to skiing.
That night, with my husband miles out of earshot, bruises coloring my backside and my muscles screaming under my skin, I confessed that I regretted making the boys switch to snowboarding.
The next day the team was on the mountain by 10:30 a.m. To get Ezra through the day, I promised if he still wanted skis after giving snowboarding one more go, I would switch them back home. I got him a lesson at 11 a.m. after shoving hand warmers in his gloves and snowboard boots, and then took Maxon to the beginner hills. Our housemate, who is a more experienced snowboarder, worked with the two of us for a few runs.
You know how cool snowboarders look when they shoot down the mountain?
I don’t look like that. But Maxon was getting close.
We met up with Ezra after his lesson, and he flashed me a satisfied smile and said, "Mom, it clicked."
For the next three hours, the three of us boarded the green hills. Or rather, we boarded the same green hill, enough times for the ski lift operators to get to know us (what up, Dana and Chelsea!).
By the end of the day, all three of us were getting to the lift without falling. Maxon shouted out, "I love this!" several times, and I felt that he meant it.
"Can we snowboard until 4?" he asked.
I told him I was proud of him for not complaining and for working through his discomfort and frustration.
"Dad said he didn't think I could do it, turn my attitude around," Maxon said.
"But you did."
"Yep."
"Feels good, doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
I was equally proud of Ezra, who, despite taking me up on my offer to switch him back to skis, worked through his resistance and the fact that he didn’t have his favorite gloves.
It only cost us hundreds of dollars and a few precious slices of sanity.
But it felt worth it, watching them get up time and again after falling, knowing they were learning how to muscle through something difficult, and experiencing their joy when they finally conquered that little hill named Powder Puff.
It's a kind of feeling you'd never get at Walt Disney World.