{"id":2450553,"date":"2019-10-31T01:12:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T07:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-princess-shredding-the-gnar-cannot-come-soon-enough\/"},"modified":"2019-10-31T11:27:12","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T17:27:12","slug":"aspen-princess-shredding-the-gnar-cannot-come-soon-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-princess-shredding-the-gnar-cannot-come-soon-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen Princess: Shredding the gnar cannot come soon enough"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I\u2019ve always known I would never be a soccer mom. After all, when Levi was born I was so determined not to drive a minivan, I bought a MINI Cooper instead.<\/p>\n

I swore I\u2019d never wear my hair in a mom-bob, never join the PTA, never push my child to adhere to the same norms I myself spent a lifetime deviating from. I was so determined not to be put into a box I moved into a triangle-shaped house which, I\u2019m coming to learn, is the furthest thing from conventional. I would not stand at the sidelines screaming hysterically or care about whether or not my kid could kick a ball into a net.<\/p>\n

Snowboarding, it turns out, might be another story.<\/p>\n

After the first snow last week, I took Levi to the park. At the last second, I grabbed his little snowboard.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d bought him the snowboard for his first birthday, which I realize now was probably a little ambitious. It\u2019s more of a toy snowboard than a real one, a plastic kid\u2019s model from Burton with a pulley at the nose so you literally pull the kid around your living room in his pajamas.<\/p>\n

I think we took the snowboard out once last season, just out on the driveway after a big storm. Ryan took a video for me, but he was just pulling Levi along as I\u2019d done in the living room. Still, it was fun to see him on snow.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019d grabbed the board for our outing to the park, it was a bit of an afterthought. I knew the playground would likely be too wet to play, and Arbaney Park doesn\u2019t have any hills big enough to sled on. Plus, I couldn\u2019t locate the sled as it had been stored somewhere over the summer and I had no clue where to begin to look.<\/p>\n

I strapped Levi into his bindings dressed in Bogs and cargo pants. I pulled him around the park for a little bit and he seemed to be enjoying it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook! I can snowboard just like you, Mom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Next, I brought the board up to the top of a small slope and let him slide down a few yards onto the flats. Success.<\/p>\n

After that, I carried him, board strapped to his feet, banging against my shins as I walked, to the tallest slope I could find, which wasn\u2019t much but it was something. It had two short pitches. I got him into position and held my breath as I let go.<\/p>\n

He not only rode down without falling, he absorbed two little bumps in perfect balance, his knees bent and arms in the perfect position to navigate the terrain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWoo-hoo!\u201d I cheered, my voice so crazed with enthusiasm it made my throat sore and sounded foreign, even to my own ears. \u201cGood one!\u201d<\/p>\n

Levi did a little cheer of his own. He understood what he had just done, and was proud of himself for not falling. Another small success. \u201cLet\u2019s do it again!\u201d he said. Music to my ears.<\/p>\n

Of course I took a video and like 60 photos because if I\u2019m going to document what I eat and take 200 photos of the pugs every day, I\u2019m sure as hell not going to miss this. I immediately texted the video to the grandparents and posted the video to social media, not even waiting until we got into the car. I was immediately rewarded with the praise I\u2019d been fishing for, the little red icon illuminated with comments and likes.<\/p>\n

That night at dinner, I did little to hide my excitement, prattling on about renting Levi a snowboard setup for the season, what, since he would be growing so fast it didn\u2019t make sense to buy one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he should master skiing before we let him snowboard,\u201d Ryan said that night at dinner. \u201cEven the big snowboarders say it\u2019s best to do that, to give them the foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n

I shook my head. \u201cI disagree,\u201d I said. \u201cHe can do both.\u201d<\/p>\n

I could feel myself transform from somewhere deep under my skin; claws sprung from my fingertips, fangs exploded from my gums, hair covered my arms, legs and face. Visions of riding power through the trees with my baby clouded my vision until I could see nothing but the spray from his last powder turn.<\/p>\n

I did my best to regain my composure and took a deep, slow, breath. \u201cI do both, why can\u2019t he?\u201d I said, trying to use that placating tone that I know Ryan interprets as condescending, but it\u2019s just what happens when you have a kid. \u201cI mean, that\u2019s why we live here, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

After our little snowboard session in the park, we went to Whole Foods, because when you live in the midvalley, you find a reason to go to Whole Foods every single day, even when you don\u2019t need to because who can survive without raw cashews, coconut milk and the chickpeas you wanted for that one recipe? The kid bagging our groceries struck up an animated conversation with Levi and we told him all about our adventure. I brandished my phone like a crazy person and showed this random person my little video of Levi snowboarding all of 100 feet.<\/p>\n

It turned out the kid was a snowboarding instructor, and clearly these two already had a connection. He was as good as hired.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to teach you a saying,\u201d the snowboard kid said to Levi. \u201cAnd I want you to remember this for the rest of your life. You can scream it at the top of your lungs. Ready?\u201d<\/p>\n

Levi nodded enthusiastically.<\/p>\n

\u201cSHRED THE GNAR!\u201d the kid yelled.<\/p>\n

As soon as we walked outside, Levi shrieked, \u201cSHRED THE GNAR!\u201d at the top of his lungs.<\/p>\n

OK, so maybe I\u2019d never be a soccer mom. But a snowboard mom? I can hardly wait.<\/p>\n

The Princess is in the market for toddler snowboard gear. Send your love to alisonmargo@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always known I would never be a soccer mom. After all, when Levi was born I was so determined not to drive a minivan, I bought a MINI Cooper instead. I swore I\u2019d never wear my hair in a mom-bob, never join the PTA, never push my child to adhere to the same norms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2450553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 10:40:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2450580,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450553\/revisions\/2450580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}