March 14: High hopes: validated, then dashed.
My apologies for not blogging yesterday. It was your usual travel day. Anne Marie always insists on getting to the airport way early, so it was a very early start on a 10:20 flight. We flew Frontier, for the first time. No complaints, other than what’s applicable to every airline: no food, not much fun. The plane was full and they asked for volunteers to be bumped. Also on the plane were two other St. Pats families, the Garcias and the Brookses. After landing in Denver, we rented a Chevy Trailblazer and drove the 2 hours to Beaver Creek. Got Ellen checked into the adaptive ski school (more on that later), AM, Gina, Mary and I got our equipment, and we checked into the condo after having some difficulty finding it. Dinner was at the Junek’s condo; we’re here with two other families from Houston, the Juneks (AM worked with Lydia at Citibank, and she and Gary have 2 daughters about the age of our oldest and youngest) and the Merkls (Chris went to UD with AM and I, and he and Kristi have a 6th grade boy and a 3rd grade girl), and the deal is that each family has to host the others for dinner one night. After dinner and a fairly humorous trip to the grocery store (if you’ve ever been to a grocery store in a resort town late on an arrival day, you know what I mean: it was like a tornado had been through there), we got an early night.
We got up early this morning to catch the bus up to the mountain. Ellen was very balky about skiing. I think I’ve explained about Ellen’s issues, and the way I’ve been trying to talk her into skiing. She wouldn’t get out of bed, but instead was using her art kit to write signs saying, “Ellen is not skiing today.” But she let us dress her in her ski attire, got on the bus with us, and went to the mountain. We met Paul, our instructor, and Ellen and I went off to the bunny hill. Paul was a very patient man, and we spent quite a bit of time trying to get Ellen to snowplow. When Gina was in ski school 4 years ago, they used “pizza” and “French fries” to describe how to put your skis to go slow (a snow plow is shaped like a pizza) or fast (put your skis parallel, like French fries). Ellen didn’t want to use those names, but thought the wedge looked like a triangle and the parallel skis looked like a rectangle.
So we worked and worked at the base of the bunny hill, including a stretch when Ellen wouldn’t get up off the snow. She just wanted to go home. Paul was pretty persistent, though, and finally decided we should just get her on the lift. She went up, skied down holding onto Paul’s poles, and enjoyed it. I was trailing, yelling, “Triangle! Big triangle!” Ellen was just talking and singing to Paul while they were skiing. We finally went to the big lift (Beaver Creek has some great easy green runs at the top of the mountain), had lunch, then skied around up there. Ellen fell a few times, and Paul kept trying to get her to let go of his poles, but she really wanted to hold on. He would get her to let go, or would drop his end of the poles so she was holding them and he wasn’t, and let her ski on her own for a while. He also spent a lot of time skiing backward in front of her, encouraging her. She can steer, but isn’t good at getting in a wedge and stopping. She can do it, and did often enough, but other than the steering, it’s pretty hard for her and does not seem intuitive to her at all. She also fell a few times, but each time got right back up. She seemed to be doing fine when we went up for one last run before catching a downloading lift back to the bottom of the mountain. That’s where trouble hit.
About 2/3 of the way down to the downloading lift, Ellen had a big wipeout. Head over heels, ending up face first in the snow. She was screaming, crying for Mommy, wanting to be picked up and taken down the mountain. It took a while to calm her down, but she was still sniffly by the time we got to the downloading lift. On the trip down, she swore she wasn’t skiing again. Ever. By the time we got to the bottom, she said her leg hurt (she wasn’t limping or favoring it, though). She had done so well (AM had seen her on the mountain, as had Gina) and the instructor was so positive, and she had been so negative this morning but still did it and it went well, we decided that AM would ski with her in the morning, with Paul.
Now, it’s late at night and she’s asleep, but when she was getting her pajamas on, she was seriously complaining that her knee hurt and was limping. It looks like it might be a little swollen. As of now, we’re planning on canceling her ski lesson and trying to get her in daycare, first thing in the morning.
I’m pretty heartbroken about it all. It always happens on the last run, and we probably should’ve just taken the downloading lift rather than that one last run. I wasn’t sure if she would be willing to go again tomorrow, so I wanted to push it, and she wanted to go one more time (but was still saying she didn’t want to ski any more days). She is so hard to deal with, and even when she does well, she gets frustrated and can’t seem to integrate what she’s just learned. When she likes something, she’s obsessive about it; if she’s not obsessive about it, she doesn’t want anything to do with it. It’s as if she can’t adopt it, can’t get her hands around it, can’t integrate the positive feelings she has about it (the fun of the lifts, the thrill of the skiing). It may be tons of fun, but it’s not comfortable and familiar, and she can’t connect with it. I was hoping we were there, or were getting close, and hoping that even though she said she didn’t want to ski any more, she would once we got her out there. Getting hurt may have changed that.
I’m hoping there’s no swelling or soreness in the morning. I’d love it if we could “force” her to go again, and she’d enjoy it again, but I don’t know if actually getting hurt will (figuratively) scar her.
I so wanted this to work for her. I’ve been working on her for so long, getting her to agree to ski at all. I feel like I’ve been working a piece of wood, getting it closer and closer to the exact shape and finish I’m looking for, and I’ve gone for just one more turn, one more cut, one more pass of the sander and ruined the piece. I hope not; even if she doesn’t ski tomorrow, I hope to get her out again Wednesday or Thursday. But still, I’m depressed. I want so much for her, and I’m so disappointed when it doesn’t work for her.
We’ll see, I guess.
top picture: the Drummonds arrive in Beaver Creek
bottom photo: the view from our condo balcony
My apologies for not blogging yesterday. It was your usual travel day. Anne Marie always insists on getting to the airport way early, so it was a very early start on a 10:20 flight. We flew Frontier, for the first time. No complaints, other than what’s applicable to every airline: no food, not much fun. The plane was full and they asked for volunteers to be bumped. Also on the plane were two other St. Pats families, the Garcias and the Brookses. After landing in Denver, we rented a Chevy Trailblazer and drove the 2 hours to Beaver Creek. Got Ellen checked into the adaptive ski school (more on that later), AM, Gina, Mary and I got our equipment, and we checked into the condo after having some difficulty finding it. Dinner was at the Junek’s condo; we’re here with two other families from Houston, the Juneks (AM worked with Lydia at Citibank, and she and Gary have 2 daughters about the age of our oldest and youngest) and the Merkls (Chris went to UD with AM and I, and he and Kristi have a 6th grade boy and a 3rd grade girl), and the deal is that each family has to host the others for dinner one night. After dinner and a fairly humorous trip to the grocery store (if you’ve ever been to a grocery store in a resort town late on an arrival day, you know what I mean: it was like a tornado had been through there), we got an early night.
We got up early this morning to catch the bus up to the mountain. Ellen was very balky about skiing. I think I’ve explained about Ellen’s issues, and the way I’ve been trying to talk her into skiing. She wouldn’t get out of bed, but instead was using her art kit to write signs saying, “Ellen is not skiing today.” But she let us dress her in her ski attire, got on the bus with us, and went to the mountain. We met Paul, our instructor, and Ellen and I went off to the bunny hill. Paul was a very patient man, and we spent quite a bit of time trying to get Ellen to snowplow. When Gina was in ski school 4 years ago, they used “pizza” and “French fries” to describe how to put your skis to go slow (a snow plow is shaped like a pizza) or fast (put your skis parallel, like French fries). Ellen didn’t want to use those names, but thought the wedge looked like a triangle and the parallel skis looked like a rectangle.
So we worked and worked at the base of the bunny hill, including a stretch when Ellen wouldn’t get up off the snow. She just wanted to go home. Paul was pretty persistent, though, and finally decided we should just get her on the lift. She went up, skied down holding onto Paul’s poles, and enjoyed it. I was trailing, yelling, “Triangle! Big triangle!” Ellen was just talking and singing to Paul while they were skiing. We finally went to the big lift (Beaver Creek has some great easy green runs at the top of the mountain), had lunch, then skied around up there. Ellen fell a few times, and Paul kept trying to get her to let go of his poles, but she really wanted to hold on. He would get her to let go, or would drop his end of the poles so she was holding them and he wasn’t, and let her ski on her own for a while. He also spent a lot of time skiing backward in front of her, encouraging her. She can steer, but isn’t good at getting in a wedge and stopping. She can do it, and did often enough, but other than the steering, it’s pretty hard for her and does not seem intuitive to her at all. She also fell a few times, but each time got right back up. She seemed to be doing fine when we went up for one last run before catching a downloading lift back to the bottom of the mountain. That’s where trouble hit.
About 2/3 of the way down to the downloading lift, Ellen had a big wipeout. Head over heels, ending up face first in the snow. She was screaming, crying for Mommy, wanting to be picked up and taken down the mountain. It took a while to calm her down, but she was still sniffly by the time we got to the downloading lift. On the trip down, she swore she wasn’t skiing again. Ever. By the time we got to the bottom, she said her leg hurt (she wasn’t limping or favoring it, though). She had done so well (AM had seen her on the mountain, as had Gina) and the instructor was so positive, and she had been so negative this morning but still did it and it went well, we decided that AM would ski with her in the morning, with Paul.
Now, it’s late at night and she’s asleep, but when she was getting her pajamas on, she was seriously complaining that her knee hurt and was limping. It looks like it might be a little swollen. As of now, we’re planning on canceling her ski lesson and trying to get her in daycare, first thing in the morning.
I’m pretty heartbroken about it all. It always happens on the last run, and we probably should’ve just taken the downloading lift rather than that one last run. I wasn’t sure if she would be willing to go again tomorrow, so I wanted to push it, and she wanted to go one more time (but was still saying she didn’t want to ski any more days). She is so hard to deal with, and even when she does well, she gets frustrated and can’t seem to integrate what she’s just learned. When she likes something, she’s obsessive about it; if she’s not obsessive about it, she doesn’t want anything to do with it. It’s as if she can’t adopt it, can’t get her hands around it, can’t integrate the positive feelings she has about it (the fun of the lifts, the thrill of the skiing). It may be tons of fun, but it’s not comfortable and familiar, and she can’t connect with it. I was hoping we were there, or were getting close, and hoping that even though she said she didn’t want to ski any more, she would once we got her out there. Getting hurt may have changed that.
I’m hoping there’s no swelling or soreness in the morning. I’d love it if we could “force” her to go again, and she’d enjoy it again, but I don’t know if actually getting hurt will (figuratively) scar her.
I so wanted this to work for her. I’ve been working on her for so long, getting her to agree to ski at all. I feel like I’ve been working a piece of wood, getting it closer and closer to the exact shape and finish I’m looking for, and I’ve gone for just one more turn, one more cut, one more pass of the sander and ruined the piece. I hope not; even if she doesn’t ski tomorrow, I hope to get her out again Wednesday or Thursday. But still, I’m depressed. I want so much for her, and I’m so disappointed when it doesn’t work for her.
We’ll see, I guess.
top picture: the Drummonds arrive in Beaver Creek
bottom photo: the view from our condo balcony
posted by Jeff at
9:56 PM
