We came, we saw, we sledded.

I am old, and therefore I broke my butt. Monkey would only go down the (rather steep) hill if I went with him. I make a lot of jokes about how big my butt is, but I am evidentally a lot bonier than I thought, because having nothing but a plastic disc between me and the hill meant that my coccyx made contact with my brain several times on the way down. Ow.

Eventually I was able to talk him into going down with his sister, but then I still had to get to the bottom of the hill to help him back up. About three trips down and up the hill and I was ready to go home. Or maybe pass out. Either way.

Meanwhile, our little friend who’d been the impetus for this trip–the one who laughs in the face of danger and loves rollercoasters–decided she doesn’t like sledding. She took exactly one trip down the hill and declared it No Fun and her mother spent the rest of the trip trying to convince her to go down again. She begged and pleaded and wheedled and I guess I understand, but there is only so much I can take, normally, and with a fever, even less so. So I told the little girl she didn’t have to sled if she didn’t want to and then I stapled her mother’s mouth shut and threw her down the hill.

Our other friend took some coaxing, and finally went down once with his mom. Then he and Monkey stomped around on the plateau and had a grand time escaping from the MamaMonster. (This was much less work for me than sledding. All I had to do was raise my arms and roar every now and then.)

Chickadee took her cues from the teenagers flinging themselves down the hill and took about thirty runs in varying positions at ever-increasing speeds. She had a blast and it really made the trip worth it, for me. It’s rare and very gratifying to see her enjoying herself with such abandon. On one of her last runs she hit a bump at the bottom and did a backwards-somersault off her sled. I watched it in horrifying Protective Mama Super Slo-Mo thinking, first, that she must’ve snapped her little neck. On the heels of that thought came one even more terrifying: which was of course that she must’ve broken her glasses. I hollered down the hill to ask if she was okay and she staggered to her feet, so dizzy that she lurched a little, and beamed up a gigantic grin. “Wasn’t that COOL, Mama???”

So it only bothered me a little when I stopped on the way home to buy cider and got the kids home and stripped down and into dry clothes and shovelled the driveway and made hot cider for them and they told me “it tastes like puke.”

Now I need someone to make the kids some dinner and maybe heat up some soup for me and then after the kids are in bed tuck me in with you on the couch for a while. I’m sure that would make me feel better. Hello? Hello?? Oh well. It was half a perfect day.