Help up the Hill

This afternoon I left work early and headed home to keep a sledding date with Ava. Ava invited a couple of friends from the neighborhood to join us on the very best sledding hill in town - a long, long, mostly gently sloped hill adjacent to the Catholic church. We've had a ton of snow over the past couple of weeks and this is a popular sledding spot, so the snow was good and packed down. We cruised down that hill! Down and back up, down and back up.

Ava was using her little saucer sled at first, but after awhile hopped in the two seater I was using. While I watched from the top of the long, long hill Ava zipped all the way to the bottom. She got up and started trudging back up the hill. The sled was a bit unwieldy and I stood there watching her struggle. Then I started to struggle. Do I go help her? Isn't part of sledding hauling the sled back up the hill after the ride? I don't want to be the mom that always intervenes, rescues, she does need to learn to do things on her own. But she's six. (Geez Kate, overthink things much?)

So what did I do? I walked down the hill to help my daughter. Because as much as I want her to be an independent person I want to be there for her more. She greeted me with a wide smile, I picked up the back of the plastic sled, she held on to the front and we trudged up the hill together. She said 'thank you momma, this is the best day.' And I felt so glad to have lightened her load.

Ava with her her friends....