DadBlog: Off Season Fun by Quintin Tyler

The Tyler Place in winter offers many recreational possibilities. Sledding, skating, snowmobiling, and ice fishing abound. Yet we, on most Sunday afternoons, have been leaving to take our children skiing. The kids (4 & 6) have been making gradual gains each time we go. My son made the breakthrough and is now skiing on his own, and my daughter is on a leash. The ‘ole lower back is thankful I don’t have to ski hunched-over, with either of them between my legs anymore.

As much of a thigh-burner snowplowing behind your child can be, it’s not the actual “peak” moment of caloric inferno. That moment occurs during the process of lugging everybody’s gear from the parked car up to the base lodge.

Earlier on in the season, my wife Julie, (whom you may remember as the Playhouse Director), would start them off at the top of the magic carpet lift, a sort of uphill-moving walkway. My job was catching them at the bottom of this short run. The goal was to have them do turns and hopefully stop on their own. We have since graduated to a chairlift on the uber-beginner trail, with the six-year-old telling me exactly when it’s time to lower and raise the safety bar. He likes reading the safety signs.

The fact that one child is now on his own, leading the way down for our safety-harnessed daughter and me, frees my wife up to take a couple of exploratory runs from the bigger chairlifts. She’s been having a ball getting these few laps in on her own.

A really rewarding part of all this is going inside after to warm up. A little hot chocolate and a few nuggets later, the kids are in heaven running around with other children. Usually there is another family or two there we know, also in the early stages of skiing with their little ones. Sometimes I think the skiing is just a formality, with this being the favorite part of their day.

It won’t be long before the Tyler Place summer season is in full swing. We are all looking forward to teaching a different sort of skiing: the kind on water. No hot chocolate required.