It was a rough, rough ten days in France. Each day we roused ourselves at 7:30am, took the long 5-minute walk into the village to buy breakfast from the boulangerie, suited up in our skiing gear, took Little Boy to his 9am morning ski class, headed out onto the slopes and skied in the bright 40-degree sunshine on 4+feet of soft snow, returned home for a quick lunch that usually involved salad and charcuterie, skied the afternoon, returned home and showered/zoned out, and then spent the nights eating, drinking, and hanging out with friends and family. Rough. (Really, I am freaking exhausted, but in a relaxed, smiley way).
Ski School
Little Boy resumed his skiing education. Last year he spent a week tolling around in the garden, where preschoolers learn to stand on their skis and snowplow. If we went by the ski school’s intended trajectory of curriculum, he would be back in the garden again this year. No way! Not this kid, who has skied red trails on Cannon Mountain. We asked to advance him two levels so he’d be taking ski lifts and snaking down blue trails in a line following the instructor. Since his natural instinct is to go straight and fast (and I have to chase after him yelling “Turn! Turn!”), this type of discipline is exactly what he needs.
His class was originally scheduled for 2-4:30pm, which was perfect for our schedule, but after the first class the school informed us they were combining sections and he’d have to go at 9am. Which, given the late dinners and jetlag, was really hard. The only way to rouse him from bed was to allow him to eat eclairs for breakfast. Chocolate eclairs stuffed with chocolate cream, to be exact. (Head hanging in Mama shame.)
Ski School
Happy Student
I noticed that when the instructor greeted Little Boy, he added an “ette” to the end of his name. In English this pronunciation is phonetic, but in French it’s not phonetic and in fact makes it a feminine name. I also heard him call Little Boy “ma puce,” a pet name literally meaning “flea” that is sort of like “sweetheart” — a term you wouldn’t typically use for a boy.
I didn’t think much of it until Mr. P came home from the drop-off on the last day, chuckling as we buckled into our ski boots.
“The instructor called Little Boy a girl,” Mr. P said. “He said, ‘Come on, girl!’ Little Boy looked at me and said, ‘Daddy, he just called me a girl!'”
We laughed about this. Little Boy’s skiing attire is extremely blue and boyish, so it remains a mystery why the instructor thought he was a girl.
The most feedback about his skiing came via Mr. P’s father, who usually picked him up at 11am while we skied. Little Boy (boy! he’s all boy!) was doing great, especially considering he was with kids who were 1-2+ years older. He was putting on his skis by himself, working towards parallel-ski turns (as opposed to snowplow turns), and keeping up with the class. But, the instructor said that because he is so young, his little legs would have trouble keeping up with the next level.
This worried me that Little Boy would not be receiving a medal during the week-end medal ceremony. In French ski school, not every child is guaranteed a medal if their skiing isn’t up to the school’s standards — a philosophy that I agree with intellectually, but fret about when applied to my child. What would happen to his self-esteem if he left the medal ceremony without a medal?
At the medal ceremony, when his class was called, Little Boy hurried to get to the raised center of the medal podium (like he had seen his 6-year old cousin do minutes before). The instructor gave out medals to two children, then announced that a third would not receive a medal: “He does not do the parallel-ski turns. He will have to repeat the class.” Wow. He announced this in front of roughly 30 people, including two children dressed like yetis. Dear Lord, I fear for that boy’s self-esteem.
Little Boy received his medal, though. Relief. He took it for granted though, so maybe not getting a medal would have been incentive to ski his little butt off.
Medal Ceremony
La cousinade
Most of Little Boy’s skiing education came after school and lunch, when Mr. P and sometimes I would take him and his 6 year-old British-French cousin out for 2-3 hours on the slopes. The cousin comes skiing 3 times a year, so he’s pretty good and he knows the slopes, including where to go off-piste.
Off-piste= off the sanctioned trails, either in trees or across tree-free snowy terrain. I’m not a fan of off-piste skiing, though everyone in France does it and many of the classes take students off-piste. I’m scared of trees and rocks, scared of encountering a sudden cliff, scared of popping out of the woods and into another skier. Skiing on piste is harrowing enough for me.
So, the boys were always going off-piste, chasing each other through the trees, and giving me a lot of stress. It was hard to keep track of the two of them. Most little kids follow their parents/adults down the slope, but they both plowed ahead of us and disappeared into the woods. I tried to be relaxed about it — at least they were having fun — but it was challenging.
One late afternoon, the cousin disregarded our instructions to go to a specific ski lift and instead went further downhill to another ski lift. We had no choice but to ski down to him. We would have to take that ski lift to another ski lift that would be closing in 15 minutes, and if we didn’t make it, we would have to ski home via a 2km-long flat road (oh, poling it home on the flats with little kids… not fun). So, as we inched up the lift, I ordered the boys to stay on-piste and to go as fast as they could to our desired lift. I repeated my orders as we got off. The cousin took off like Bode Miller and I raced to keep up with him. Little Boy tried to keep up but his skis are rather small. Still, Mr. P couldn’t believe how fast he was going. Zoom. We made the lift and continued on our way home.
The cousins
Zoom!
Little Boy getting timed
Little Boy descending a steep part with Mr. P
Are you better than a 4 year-old?
I was bragging to my father about how good his grandson is on the slopes, and he asked, in all seriousness, “Better than you?” Hmph, let’s not get crazy. I’m sure somewhere, like in Austria, there is a 4 year-old skiing prodigy with the requisite strength, balance, and stamina to ski better than a 35-year old woman — an ultramarathoner — who has been skiing for almost 8 years. I’m not a phenom, but I can (slowly) negotiate an Alpine black slope. I’d probably be even better if I wasn’t using 15 year-old skis donated by Mr. P’s aunt, which compared to today’s modern skis are little better than narrow planks of wood, and if I still didn’t have a lingering fear of heights, as well as vivid paranoia about getting blindly clobbered by some hotshot French 20-something snowboarder as I take wide turns vertically across the slope (which in fact did happen on the second day, leaving me with a sore neck for the rest of the week — not sure if it was from the force of the collision or from when his snowboard ran over my head.)
Anyway, I’m getting pretty good. On our last day, when everyone else had already returned to work and school and the slopes were empty, Mr P and I took a series of lifts to the glacier (this is the same glacier that we were supposed to run during La 6000 D, but they closed that part of the course due to torrential rain). Much better to ski down a glacier than run up a glacier.
Descending the glacier
Enjoying a vin chaud on the glacier (the dog barked angrily at Mr P for some reason)
Skinny Skis
On a few days, I returned to my XC skiing roots and hit the flat trails with my skinny skis and iPod. I timed myself on my favorite 15 KM loop (around 80 minutes on nice groomed tracks, 95 minutes after a night of light snow that I had to power through). I did this twice on New Year’s Day, which was the only cloudy/overcast day on the whole trip. Yes, I XC skied for exercise and to torch the previous nights’ fondue or raclette, but though it’s physically difficult, gliding through the snowy hushed woods is the easiest workout I know.
I know what I want to be when I grow up: a recreational amateur XC skier.
Les Piétons
In the clouds (momentarily)
- Descending home on a lift from the XC Ski Trails
