I’m not really an outdoorsy person or a thrill-seeker. But since our first trip to the mountains last year, my older son had been begging all winter for another chance to go. He is only seven, and has been only a few years a Coloradoan, but maybe he somehow already knows the allure of this landscape.
I tried to reassure myself thinking I should know what to expect from this; we did it last year. But there were four of us then, and now both boys were just big enough to go down the real tubing hill, but with me. If we were going to do it, it’d have to be the three of us together. I summoned some courage and forked over the cash for tickets. We hiked over to the tracks and hauled ourselves up the magic carpet.
Poised on the edge of the slope, the tube wrangler lady instructed us how to entwine ourselves so as to connect our three tubes together in order to go down as a unit. We had a tenuous grip on each other; their arms were still pretty short for this. She gave us a hard shove anyway and down we slid. It wasn’t so bad, actually; if you closed your eyes and ignored that you were hurtling down an icy track with your two kids’ hands clutching yours as you simultaneously tried to grip the handle of a flimsy inner tube, you’d kind of enjoy the rush of adrenaline you got from thinking you might be sliding to your death.
We went down three or four more times together, enjoying it. As the sun started to merge into the horizon, I realized there was only time for one more run. We settled ourselves in at the top of the hill in our usual triad formation, but this time somehow we couldn’t grab on to each other well enough to hold on together. We couldn’t do this one as a threesome; my eldest would have to ride alone.
The younger boy and I finished our run and I anxiously climbed out of the tube and watched helplessly as my eldest son got in and rode down alone. He looked small from my vantage point, and I was worried he was too little for this. During the long seconds of his descent, I was sure something would happen. But we all made it, of course. My little kid ambled off the course full of bravado as I breathed a sigh of relief. Guess you got to let them go sometime, little by little.
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Elizabeth Senouci is a software localization engineer, translator, occasional writer, and mom of two boys. She enjoys traveling, running, and sitting on the couch.
Author: Mile High Mamas
