A Child's Enthusiasm (That I Crashed Into His Dad!)

I love random chats with kids. Another such encounter was at the bottom of the slope, where a child, a boy no older than 5 years, ran up to me while he carried his little skis. I think he was looking for me, as I crashed into his dad two runs earlier up on the slope. I let myself crash-stop, landing on my bottom, as I was finished snowboarding for the day. I sat on snow while I tried to muster more energy to separate my snowboard from my boots.

The boy started laughing even before he could reach me. Which made me laugh too even though I didn’t know why yet! I guess I also felt relieved coz I knew he wasn’t going to scold me for hurting his dad or for snowboarding badly, whew! :-)

He said something like, “You crashed into my dad! You both flew I saw it!” To which I replied, “Ya, I did. I tried to avoid him. Is he okay?” I don’t think he listened to me as he said, “I almost hit you too but I didn’t, hahahah.” This quickly replayed the event again in my head as I said with horror, “I know, I was avoiding you so I ended up on your dad. Your dad will have an awesome souvenir on his camera” (he was filming). The boy kept quiet, but the disappointment on his face showed he wished I crashed into him instead! Which made me remember the event again in horror, ack! Thank God his dad was there for me to aim for! ;-)

I asked him if he was finished skiing for the day, he said yes then took off, climbing up the slope, already off to whatever else caught his attention.

(By the way, it wasn’t fully my fault, ack! I was practising sharp turns with my off-foot forward. The dad was skiing backwards while filming his son ski downhill. He entered my path when I already turned. I tried to warn him, his friend did not warn him, and I could not break because I was terrified to slow down and hit the boy instead! So I made a weird, loud, undecipherable sound, then BANG! IMPACT! I asked him quickly if he was okay, while looking for the boy, who was laughing. We admitted our faults – him not looking where he was going, me leading with my weaker leg - and pretended our crash wasn’t as painful as it really was. I think it helped that I was a girl wearing my hair in pigtails, heheh ugh, and that I was so worried I hurt him! The dad said he probably had an awesome video clip of it. I apologised again then we separated ways.)