Slip Sliding Away

It's amazing how much can change in a year. I took the boys sledding last year and nearly lost my mind. The clock may have said we were only out there twenty minutes, but really, the clock lied. It was 568 hours of crying, whining and sled flipping.

It's taken me a year to work up the nerve to do it again. Now, mind you, we didn't have snow for six of those months, but still, I was rather apprehensive about tobogganing again.

But something happened to change my mind.

This week we are in the midst of a Chinook!!!!!! Which is my very favoritest weather phenomenon. It was a big factor in our decision to move back to Calgary. Which made it rather tough when we didn't get one last year. Way Cooler was NOT impressed. He'd heard about them, believed me, and did not get to see one. It was almost too much to take for my favorite winter wimp warm weather guy.

There is still plenty of snow on the ground but it was five degrees (Celsius) out. It was too warm to NOT go sledding. And Way Cooler was working. Which meant that it was up to me. Because apparently social service takes a dim view of dropping your 3 and 5 year old at the hill and going to Starbucks. Which means social services has never gone tobogganing with preschoolers.

So I promised myself a big chunk of chocolate if when we made it home and loaded up the new Christmas sleds.

It was awesome.

We found an empty corner of a popular tobogganing hill, just perfect for small sledders and off we went. It was so warm that no appendages even got chilly. I even took my coat off. Yee haw.

They had the very best of times. When I am old I shall still remember small faces etched with glee as they took off down the "Very Big Hill". Sprout really got into it, which is quite amazing for the child who clung to me sobbing in terror last year. He even began to lie down in the sled as it shot down the hill. This most closely resembles luge. Without the helmet.

The only downside, the toboggans are really too big for small arms to carry back up the very big hill and the riders too unsteady to position themselves at the top. Which meant that mommy walked up and down the hill Every.Single.Time.

Who needs a personal trainer when you can toboggan with my babies? That's a lot of hill to go up and down and up and down and well, you get the picture. The very, very sore picture.

Good thing I had that hunk of chocolate.