In the midst of family activities, I frequently find myself asking “why”

Why do we put ourselves, and our kids, through this exhaustion/stress/frustration of family fun?

Why spend the money? Why use the time?  Why, why, why?

We just spent the day skiing with the kids at whistler. Beautiful, yes! Expensive . . . double yes.

And as we were taking our 5th run down the mountain, we hit a patch of ice. It was a steep slope and the sun was beating down (amazing inversion!) and my 6 year old hit a wall.  She was hot, and she was tired, and she didn’t have the brain or thigh power to deal with the ice.

She sank to her bum on the middle of the slope as was done.
Completely D.O.N.E.

This was the moment that I started asking “why”?  Why did we spend the money for this? Why, why (woe is me) why?

Apparently, I was also D.O.N.E

And then I sat beside her in the snow and we looked at the beautiful sunshine, the mountains and the blue sky. I gave her the same pep talk that my parents gave me about just digging deep and getting to the bottom of the hill (and then the bottom of the next, and so on) We talked about how when skiing, in an alpine meadow, there was no easy button back to the cabin.

She We wiped off the tears and we brushed the snow off our pants, and tried again.

She finished the run, and we made our way back down the hill to rest and comfort. And my thoughts of “why, oh why” vanished as I realized without the flight delays, and long ski runs in their youth, they may never understand the joys of finally landing, or making it to the warm cocoa after a successful ski day.

Without putting my kids through the trenches now and having them experience challenges, sometimes beyond their comfort zone, they may never know how to overcome them as adults.  Hopefully by successfully overcoming all these crappy moments we throw at them, they will realize they can over come anything.

Seriously . . . anything!

So, I patted my exhausted visa card, and finally understood the value of what we actually purchased today.  And then I treated the kids to warm cocoa  . . . and got myself a beer!