Sledding

Yesterday we took the kids sledding at the Beavercreek Golf Course where Ben's parents live. They have a lot of snow there, too, and since we don't really have a good sledding hill near us we decided we would go there for the day.

It was a pretty big hill, and the kids had a good time, and we had the hill to ourselves. Maria loved every run and and went pretty far a couple of times - once ran into Rita's foot pretty hard. But sometimes things can't just be fun and easy. Here's where things started to go bad.

There was a ramp that other kids had built up in the middle of the hill. Sam, of course, wanted to use the ramp as soon as he saw it. But we talked him out of it and are pretty sure he would have forgotten about it completely, until it was my turn to sled.

I am not good at steering the sled. It's like I have a mind block that makes me do the opposite of what I am supposed to do. So after Ben gave me a push from the same place the three of them started from, I started heading directly for the ramp. And when I tried to steer away from it, I continued to head straight toward it. Later, when Ben asked and I told him I really wasn't very sore, he said that it "wasn't really a bad landing, considering you flew at least three feet into the air." And when he asked why I didn't just get off the sled when it became clear I wasn't going to be able to miss the ramp, it was the first time that possibility entered my mind. I just accepted my fate, flew off the ramp, and fell on my butt. Pretty hard, but only my lower back is a little sore this morning. Good news - Rita did not have her camera out and this amazing run was not caught on film.

Unfortunately, though, my form was so exceptional that my run looked really fun to Sam. So much fun that he couldn't even consider going down the hill and missing the ramp. Which is what happened the first time he tried to head for the ramp - he just missed it. And stood at the bottom of the hill and cried. Like he was a 4-year-old. So the next time when he headed for the ramp, he made it, and did a pretty good job of landing. But the second time down the ramp (in between crying fits of missing the ramp), he hit it hard, flew off the sled, and landed on his face. He started screaming and Rita and I ran to him. (We were at the bottom of the hill to make sure the kids did not fly into the creek - Ben was in charge of getting them started at the top of the hill). Sam was crying, hard, and complained about pain in his mouth. We all looked in there and couldn't see anything - no blood, no cracked teeth, nothing. But he still kept crying and crying. So we let Maria go down the hill one more time, and then we headed back to the condo. Which was a long walk. Through some pretty deep snow. With Sam crying and whining the whole way.

But we made it back, got undressed, and Sam was still complaining about pain in his mouth. And none of us could see anything wrong inside his mouth. So we gave him some Sprite and candy and he eventually cheered up. But after we got home last night, he was still complaining about his mouth "feeling funny," and then I could see that there was a series of scrapes on the inside of his lip - from the lip to the gum - and it was slightly swollen. Not sure why none of us could see it earlier, except that we were looking for a lot of blood and something more serious. We are so lucky that didn't end up worse then what it was. It may be a while before he goes sledding with that dare-devil attitude again - at least I hope so.