Babies who roll and children who ski

We’ve recently got back from our first family ski holiday to the French Alps. Hubs learnt to ski when he was 3 and was doing competition skiing by the age of 10. He is a God on skis. End of. I, on the other hand, “learnt” to ski in my early twenties after moving to France (where EVERYONE seems to ski), a good 15 years later I still look like Bambi, in slow motion, as I attempt to come down the slopes.

Despite that fact, for the last 3 years I have been saying we should have a family ski holiday so L can learn to ski while she’s young enough to not have The Fear. Finally 2013 is that year. L is now 6 and I’m glad to say we haven’t left it too late.

Our week was amazing with Hubs and L bonding on the slopes every afternoon, just the two of them, doing something they’re both passionate about. While they were doing that I was chilling with C and doing baby things, but also reading and doing a bit of writing for this poorly abandoned blog while she slept.

This is the summary of our first family ski holiday:

  • L learnt to ski, has no fear, loves it and skis like a little champion. Proud mummy moment.
  • C learnt to roll over from her tummy to her back. Not quite so momentous, but equally exciting and proud mummy moment. (Also scared mummy moment as that means we’re getting closer to a mobile baby and I can still remember the absolute joy of that from when L was little!)
  • I ate my body weight in cheese and charcuterie, but surely that’ll all be burnt off by breast-feeding, non?
  • Hubs totally chilled out, switched off from work, skied about 1000 miles and spent the whole week bursting with pride over his daughters’ accomplishments.
  • L also caught us out on the second night by pulling a tooth out that was only starting to wobble, leaving it on the bedside table and not telling us as she wanted to surprise us with a coin from the tooth fairy (La Petite Souris in France) in the morning. Eek! Cue some quick thinking from Mummy in the morning when the tooth had not been taken and the coin had not appeared.
  • We also used these holidays to work on L’s French; her ski lessons were in French, we only spoke in French and met up with various French friends. We also decided to do some French reading with her, now that she’s pretty solid with her English reading. We were playing a game and she had to pronounce the French word “lapin” (rabbit), however she pronounced it “la pine” which means “dick” in French. On seeing her parents in uncontrolled fits of laughter she decided to shout this louder and louder. In France. Where everyone could understand her. Ah the joys of bilingual children! (We didn’t tell her what it meant.)

It was a ridiculously expensive holiday and may mean we have no other holidays this year, but I don’t regret it one bit, as it was an absolutely fab family break, even if my 6 year old now puts me to shame on the slopes. At least I can roll over better than my 3 month old!

Franglaise family chilling in the French Alps

Franglaise family chilling in the French Alps

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