Two days before I left for Palm Springs, we joined my brother and sister-in-law and my nieces for a short trip to Granite Peak, a ski area a few miles outside of Wausau. It is a fun little ski hill, just over an hour away from Rhinelander. A perfect place for Lola to learn how to ski.
Although she was more excited about the hotel's indoor water park, she was also looking forward to playing in the snow. Like all toddlers, she caught on pretty quick once she got used to having really big feet all of a sudden and figured out how to balance herself by leaning forward. We had her strapped in a harness so she couldn't get away from us.
The second day we enrolled her in a toddler ski class for two hours. She is now a pro. She can make turns, pizza slices, and duck feet. That's really all one needs to know to successfully conquer the slopes. And she loved the ski lifts. Mama not so much once she found out they didn't have safety bars! It didn't bother Lola one bit, but I hung on for dear life.
I could not believe it. I still can't. In this overprotective country where I am scolded for not forcing my child to wear a helmet when she is riding her tricycle, that same child is allowed to dangle thirty feet above ground on a skinny bench with nothing in place to prevent her from falling off. And nobody bats an eye.
Despite this shortcoming, we are returning at the end of the month for some more fun in the snow. No water park this time though. Lola will be disappointed, I'm sure.
2 comments:
It's all relative--country people are way more relaxed about child safety than city people. Helmet laws are city people laws. Country kids ride on ATVs, snowmobiles, ski lifts, inner tubes and large animals and no one thinks to strap them in or add padding.
I feel your pain! I took my diminutive daughter and a preschool friend on a "sky ride" at our local amusement park and found myself petrifed that I was with the only two people I knew who could actually go under the front bar and drop. I was sweating bullets and couldn't let go of them, much to their annoyance. Why is there no girth requirement??
Isn't it funny what the preschool ski classes teachers call things, like pizza wedges? If a child here can't get the snowplow right, he has to use the "Magic Wormie" to keep the skis together. Yeah, Magic Wormie made me think, too. Tee-hee!
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