Monaloca

In my effort to see snow once a year and introduce my children to truer seasons than we experience in Berkeley, we took a quick trip to Tahoe last weekend. It’s become a tradition to travel snow-ward with my sis and her family, and this year we decided to take a simple day trip from their Roseville home to Soda Springs. Planet Kids has a pint-sized tubing run, an inner tube ride, and skis and snowboards for little ones to try out, all for the good ole’ price of $25 per kid.

The weather was grand. Loads of sunshine and just a slight breeze. The kind of day that had me longing to be back on my own set of skis. The snow was, well, a combo of hard-packed and slushy and I’m guessing mostly machine made given our dry winter. But beautiful, and beckoning someone like Melina to wander and explore, traipsing through snow and crunching through ice, making snowballs and baby snow people along the way, and falling backwards to make a snow angel.

It took her a bit to warm up to the crowds at the tubing run, but she had fun sliding down the hill, riding the swirly tube ride with Ella, and climbing to the top of a small hill. And then, she told me she wanted to try skis. Sometimes my biggest girl really floors me. She has a tendency towards caution and holding back, so asking out of the blue to try skiing – especially when none of her cousins were – isn’t something I would have predicted. Of course, I was secretly thrilled. She took longer finding boots that “fit” (a size 13 with no socks for my size 11 kid) than she did “skiing” down a small hill with my help and ski-walking along the front of the ski shack on her own. (And by the way that’s right, no socks. She skied barefoot under her borrowed boots.) But she was proud to be “going skiing all by myself!” and had a nice, brief taste of my favorite winter sport.

Nalani, on the other hand, wasn’t too thrilled with the whole experience. Between the bright white cold, her runny nose, her eye teeth coming in, and well, being a tenacious and routine-loving 22-month-old, she was much happier playing with baby dolls and blocks back at her cousins’ house. Maybe next year?

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Melina is super proud that she can now ride her bike around the block (twice the other day) without a single bit of help from Mama. I’m super happy because now I can take her and Nalani on a ride without any other adult to help push a trike or help a preschooler get started with her balance.

I’m still in awe of how quickly Melina has taken to two wheels, sans training wheels. (It’s been all of six trips around the block or park.) And I’m very proud! Next up: learning to brake with pedals instead of her feet scraping against the sidewalk.

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Nalani loves to sing (and dance). Listen to her latest version of the ABC’s, with a little help from big sis.

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