The story of Charlotte's ski class begins like this: I am a crazy person. My daughter has a little crazy in her too. Ok maybe she's not really crazy, maybe she's just 3 years old...but I...I really am crazy. Last year when we went skiing she loved it, so when I saw that she could start ski lessons at 3 years old I thought this year was it! For a year I had it planned that I would have her take her first ski class. Sometimes in my head I live in a fantasyland where I have a great voice, know how to dance, everybody loves me no matter what I do, my house is decluttered and I eat all kinds of chocolate without gaining a pound. Sometimes in my fantasy land we break out in song like we live in a musical. Anyway, in this same fantasyland Charlotte was going to take her first ski class at 3 and bounce happily into class and come out 4 hours later doing the pizza pie down the mountain, looking for jumps to show me and loving every second of it. A couple weeks before the trip I started thinking about how to make this fantasyland dream come true and how to make it "perfect." One night I woke up at 2 AM worrying about Charlotte getting whiney at this lesson. I was plotting how to make sure she was well rested enough and offer bribes and then I started worrying about how she would act if she got cold. I spent an hour (in the middle of the night) researching the best children's gloves and reading multiple articles on coats for little ones and putting together a ridiculous list of items I was going to buy to make this day perfect. Luckily, I didn't spend as much money as my list had planned, but I did buy good gear to try to make this ski class my "fantasyland vision." I mentioned I am crazy, right? The day of class comes and she is psyched. She gets all ready and goes out to her class to meet her teacher. I don't even remember what set her off, but all of a sudden she started whining and saying that she didn't want to take the class anymore. Ugh! This is not how it went down in my fantasyland vision. The next course of events involved Richard and I hiding behind the ski school cabin to spy on the progress without getting in the way, watching Charlotte lie on the ground crying, seeing the ski instructor finally give up and lie down next to her, getting excited when she eventually walked over toward the hill and then being let down again when we realized they were only going over to build a snowman. It was torture for me. I was wanting to go over and tell the teacher that I made a huge mistake, I was mad that I had raised "that kid" that would push the ski instructor to need a beer after work and I was mostly frustrated with myself for putting too much pressure on the whole situation. Finally, I just couldn't take it anymore and realized I was driving myself even more crazy. Rich and I left to go ski and actually enjoy the beautiful day. We had a great 1st run, 2nd run, and the first half of the 3rd run, until the sad event of Richard tearing his ACL...such a bummer. After I finally got back to pick up Charlotte from her class, she was totally happy and proud of herself for riding the lift, doing the pizza pie down the hill, and having a good time with the teacher. He was complimentary about how things ended and said, "she is really smart, a little too smart. A lot of my techniques didn't work on her." Ha..that is a really nice way to put it. I guess all is well that ends well. But I am still crazy for obsessing.
