How we decided to be “snowboarders.” Spoiler: we weren’t.

This is my Do. And today, there’s this fact hanging in the air: at max speed coming down the mountain, even I, as a mom, find it hard to catch up with him.

But four years ago, everything was very different.
Giving in to my husband’s coaxing and reluctantly gathering the gear we had just bought with heavy hearts, we planned a trip to the mountains.
“To feel the Alps,” a name that sounded fancy, and after watching a few YouTube videos of snowboarders flying down snowy mountains at wind speed… we decided we’d be like them too.

Well, they looked beautiful. Stylish. Energetic. From the side, it seemed so easy how they maneuvered their boards. And the boards themselves were beautiful. Colorful. Each one unique.

To feel more confident, we first went to the Druskininkai Snow Arena and took a coach’s lesson, immediately standing on the slope grinning like frogs.
A young coach arrived, holding a board under his arm, looking almost like the ones we’d seen on YouTube. Smiling, he hopped on the board and effortlessly grinned even wider at the bottom of the slope.
“Now you,” he said,
“First lesson: we learn to fall.”
“Learn… what???” my inner voice roared in nine dragons.
I wanted to ride, not learn to fall.

Long story short? The lesson was a failure. I learned neither to fall nor to ride properly. We chalked it up to the mountain’s slope being too short and the lesson too brief.
“I’ll go to the Alps—that’s where…”
And so we went.

The three of us, full of enthusiasm, arrived in the Alps and got on the first lift…
Where the attendant tried to explain that the board must be attached to the foot while getting on the lift.
But with language barriers and probably too much rookie clumsiness, we were allowed to hold our boards by hand.

We reached the top… and realized the request to strap the board to one foot was the least of our worries.
Looking around, we saw we were at the top of a red run, and there was no other way down.
What did we do? We went down.
On the SEATS!!!

Having safely reached the bottom and checked each other’s pants’ behinds, we confirmed none of them were torn through and continued our descent.

I still remember that sunny day, those insanely tall mountains, their grandeur, and our helplessness in front of them.
We strapped a six-year-old Do to a board and said:
“Okay, son, get up.”
He collapsed like a block.
We lifted him by the armpits, and he tried to stand with the board, staring with wide eyes and saying:
“I can’t.”

How can you not be able to do it, coming 2000+ km to the Alps!
And then “I can’t” had to become “I can.”

Being snowboard “pros” ourselves, we took on the role of teaching our child.
I don’t remember all the details of that first day, but I know precisely that after half a day of struggle, we were begging the kind lift operator to get us down with all the boards we had.
We returned to the hotel by some bus.
And all three of us fell asleep.

The next morning, having accepted that we were still far from the snowboarders we’d seen on YouTube, and that just “feeling the Alps” doesn’t grant skill… we packed our nerves into the luggage, extracted maximum patience from them, and started the teacher-student routine.

We fell and got up. Rolled and shook ourselves, stood again. Flew down and lying on the snow, wondered if I was still alive and had all my teeth… we brushed off the snow and tried again.

Amid all these attempts, our six-year-old took his first steps on the board.
There were moments I thought that climbing a high mountain with him, bent knees, trying to catch him—I’d literally cough out my lungs.
I thought I would never, ever agree to be a ski instructor for anyone in my life!
And yet, for him—I was.

Today, trying to keep up with my four-year-standing-on-a-board Do, I admired how bravely he carves down the mountain, joyfully jumping over snow mounds, riding as smoothly as us, and never once saying, “I’m tired,” “I don’t want to,” or “I can’t.”

When I tenderly touched his sore muscles in the most impossible places and asked:
“Does it hurt?”
His short, clipped answer: NO…

He reminds me that I have something to be proud of in life.
Next to me, I have a little snowboarder, like the ones we saw on YouTube, gliding down the mountain with ease and wind in his hair.

Kiss your juniors goodnight.
There’s pride to be had.

V.