Why Else Would I Be Doing It?
We went skiing yesterday. Shane’s method of skiing is to get to the top of the hill and then fly straight down the hill at lightning speed.
After a few runs desperately trying to catch up with him, I asked him to try zig-zagging down the hill instead. He zigged once or twice, then bolted down the hill with me chasing behind again.
“So, Shane,” I said on the lift. “Dylan wants to go on a blue hill.” (This is a slightly more difficult hill to traverse than green, which is the novice level we’d been skiing all day.)
“I don’t really want to go on a blue one,” Shane said.
“That’s fine with me,” I said. “But I want you to know that I will not take you on a blue one ever if you don’t show me that you have some ability to control your skiing. When you race down the hill like you do, I see that you can’t control your speed or your turns.”
“I can go slow and do zig-zags,” he said. “I just don’t want to.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “But if I don’t see you go slower and do some turns, I will believe that you just can’t control your skis.”
We got off the lift. Shane zig-zagged the entire way down the hill, like a pro. He slowed himself to a stop a few times, and looked over at me before proceeding down the hill, still zigging and zagging. Near the bottom, he raced down – still beating the rest of the family to the lift line.
I arrived with my ski poles in the air. “That was AWESOME!” I said. “Shane, you really did it! You looked like a pro out there!”
Shane was nonplussed. On the way up the lift, though, I talked and talked about what a great job he did with his ski control.
Finally he said, “Well I told you I could do it. I just don’t like to.”
On the very next run, he skipped all the zigging and zagging and went straight, blowing past all the other skiers and beating his family down the hill by about five minutes.
So, on the next run, I acquiesced. “So I guess you are just going to go fast down the hill,” I said, trying not to think about broken legs and such.
“I guess,” Shane said.
“Do you like that?” I asked, genuinely curious. “I mean, is it fun just zooming down the hill with the wind whipping you in the face and all?”
“Of course I like it,” he said. “Why else would I be doing it?”
Shane is not a demonstrative, emotional sort. He doesn’t smile a lot. He doesn’t let on when he really enjoys something.
So this is a surprise. My baby enjoys racing down the mountain at lightning speeds. He has the skill necessary to do it, in spite of his inexperience, and he’s smart enough not to try racing down the more difficult hills yet.
Skiing is fun. But giving Shane a chance to express himself in new ways is absolutely thrilling.
He’s bold, and a risk-taker. He’s athletic, yet practical. And he enjoys speed – something I never expected from a boy who, as a baby, spent so much time with his face on the floor and his diaper in the air.
I guess it’s all about opportunity.