I've been wanting to take my now 6 year old boy skiing the past couple of winters, it finally happened. I was anxious about taking him. Most things come to him pretty quickly and he gets frustrated easily and gives up rather quickly when he doesn't get things right away (I know, we're working on it). Two summers ago, biking came to him really quickly, but then he fell one day and I really struggle to get him to get back on the bike.
So I was anxious about taking him to the ski hill and spending all day there knowing full well that it might not go well and he might refuse. We talked about it a lot before hand; he wanted to try it. We watched videos and I took a crash course (via Youtube) in how to teach a kid how to ski.
A perfect deal came up on Groupon - $19 for an afternoon of skiing. Fortunately my brother had equipment that he and I could use (and my brother - and the cousins) decided to come too.
The first hour or so seemed to be going the way I feared. He fell... a lot. I was exhausted from helping him back up constantly - because that's a separate lesson in itself - learning to stand back up in your ski boots and skis. But he wanted to go up the chairlift - after no successful runs on the bunny hill - and try another hill. After getting up the chairlift successfully (big victory there!), we started down a hill. He was almost in tears, I was sweating - then my nephew comes by and informs us that this is a blue square hill (the middle level difficulty hill) - crap. Fortunately in the 15 minutes on the hill - we had not gone far at all. We took off our skis and climbed up the hill.
The green circle hill wasn't much better. It took us 30-45 minutes to go down it (normal run would be less than 5 minutes I think).
At this point, the kid was done. I, trying to stay positive and keep my own frustration from showing up in my tone, voice, and body - say "let's just go take a break in the chalet. We'll have our energy drink (my special chocolate Boost drink that he never gets to have but always wants) and we'll get some candy and whatever you want. He announces as we walk in, "I think I'm done skiing". Let's just see, let's just take a break.
45 minutes later I suggest, the chalet is boring, let's go out and try again. He is agreeable but says just the bunny hill. Fine by me.
We get out onto the hill, up the ramp, and down he goes. I don't know what happened, but something clicked - he made it all the way down, and fell at the bottom. But huge success - as before he never went more than 5-10 feet without falling. From then on, he just had it. So much so that he got a little cocky and started to learn to "spray powder" to stop, rather than just snow plowing to stop.
The kid wants to ski again. He's decided we should go once a month for every winter month.
#Momwin
So what does this have to do with cookies. Nothing really. Except when my siblings and I were little and we went skiing, my mom was always the "chalet support" and always had cookies.
So I made #381 Butter Wafers
A very buttery crumbly yummy cookie.
1 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 cup flour
2/3 cup cornstarch
Colored sugar - if you want
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Combine flour and cornstarch; add to the creamed mixture and mix well.
Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls 3 in. apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Sprinkle with colored sugar if you want. Bake at 325 for 12-15 minutes or until edges are lightly browned and tops are set. Cool for 2 minutes before carefully removing to wire racks.
