Little Ski Bunny

Brynna was very interested when she heard that Mama and Dada were off skiing during our vacation. "I want to go skiing!" she said on Friday as Alex and I headed out again.

So we decided to oblige her. When we got back to Concord on Friday night, I pulled out my baby skis, which my parents had brought up a few months ago, and we adjusted them to fit onto Brynna's boots.

We started the skiing lessons in the living room:


B learned how to maneuver around quite quickly, especially after we explained the importance of not crossing her skis.


A high five for our little ski bunny:


Pleased with this small success, Brynna and I planned for a try at some actual skiing on Saturday morning. When she woke up at her usual atrociously early hour, we got all our warm gear on and headed off to Pat's Peak, our local ski area, where the beginner's area is free.

We strapped on our skis and practiced "scootch-scootching" as we made our way toward the beginner's hill. She actually has fairly good balance on the flat, but no weight to do any sort of edging when the going gets rough!

The bunny slope features a "carpet lift," which is a rubberized moving sidewalk that takes you up to the top. B was able to stand on her little skis right in between my big skis, and thought it was great fun to ride the "magic carpet." There were little animal figurines scattered in the woods that she took great delight in pointing out each time we headed up.

Once on top, I held a ski pole in front of her so she had something to hang onto, and zoomed her down inside of my snowplow. She loved it immediately! We developed a little chant: "bend your knees and straighten your skis!" (She doesn't have the power yet to be able to execute a snowplow herself, so we just focused on keeping a little weight in her skis, and pointing them in generally the downhill direction.)

Every time we got to the bottom, she'd say "more!" And then at the top, she'd hold her arms out and say, "I ready!" As soon as we started to glide down, I'd hear "let's go faster!"

We ended up doing ten runs down the bunny slope before she decided she was a bit tired and was ready for some hot chocolate. But after our snack, she demanded to go back out again, and we did five more runs before heading home.

I may have some actual on-snow pictures to post next weekend...since it was just the two of us on Saturday I wasn't able to hold her up and take photos at the same time!