Monday, January 17, 2011

A Big Bear Miracle


We've been coming up to Big Bear every year for the past nine years.
Each year, N has been terrified of sledding down the hill across from the house we stay in.
Most years, he has refused to even get on a sled once the entire weekend.
Every now and again, he's agreed to go on with Baroy. Once. Only.
Last year, just days before we came up here, he had surgery for an undescended testicle. Obviously, he wasn't allowed to sled. In classic contrary kid fashion, he spent the entire time complaining about the restriction. We just rolled our eyes.
This year, freed from the threat of popped stitches and uncontrolled bleeding, he insisted he was planning to spend the entire weekend making up for what he missed last year. Again, we rolled our eyes. We knew better.
We were so very, very wrong.



Neither crash, nor 62nd crash, nor sled washed out to sea (OK, lake...sticklers) could stop this child.
(Yes, that is specifically why we couldn't let him sled last year. Can you imagine?)

Somehow or other, they managed to get that sled back. I'm not sure i want to know.
 
He was the first over the father-built moguls, the first up the hill after each run, and the last in the house after each excursion out. 

His sister had a blast, too. But that's par for her course.



But for him? For us? It was a Big Bear Miracle.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mine took on sledding this year too. Seems like a big milestone... though I don't know about sledding into the lake. I'd have to draw the line on that one. ;-)

TC said...

It wasn't QUITE as dangerous as it looks...we built up lots of barriers to stop them well before the lake begins. And then we taught them how to bail early if those barriers failed. (The sled in that picture was the one the oldest boy was on...I'm pretty sure the barrier-breaching was done on purpose. ;-))

It IS a big milestone, though not on any of the development charts!

Heather said...

That's kind of amazing. I bet you all were grinning ear to ear to watch him enjoy the snow. Now I'm intrigued to know just how they got that sled out of the lake!

Green said...

GO N!

Niksmom said...

KVELLING!

Anonymous said...

Yay for N!

That's great. Two of my are physically... brave (trying not to use the term "reckless here...), and one is more like N when it comes to things like this, so I do understand what a humongo thing this is.

I'm so glad he had a good time!

And I'd also like to know how the sled got back. I've rescued balls and a frisbee in my kayak and I just hope they didn't use one of the other sleds as a paddle board.... :-)

meg said...

Wonderful! So happy for all of you!

Roni said...

That's AWESOME!!! I'm so glad he was so adventurous and loved it so much!