Chase applied to two ski mountains to be a ski instructor
and found out Friday night he was hired at both! Way to go Chase! Big
accomplishment as not easy to get hired in this job as every teen and their
brother wants these jobs as instructors. He has had tutoring jobs with the
neighbor over the years but this is the first that is official. He chose the
one our other two kids ski at.
After years of investing in his lessons, skis,
snowboards, certifications and memberships at Ski Mountains we are thrilled
this is happening for him (and hopefully the other two will follow suit next
year and the next).
It was a strategic decision thought up ago years ago on
our part to encourage our teens (then young kids!) towards jobs at the hills .
Many warned me not to get my hopes up and that likely we would do all this and
he would choose another first job. But we were right-he wanted to be a ski
instructor and so do Bear and Beauty so far anyways. It’s strategic bc it keeps
the cottage as our weekend home base for a number more years and keeps those
kids close to us.
It’s still super hard on the schedules as now we will
need to bring two cars every weekend as often will need to be in two different
places and hills at the same time with Beauty’s competitions and Chases
schedules and Bear's pre-monitor training. Fridays they ski for the school so
we often arrive at 12:30am!!! We will never ever get to sleep in all winter as
they need to be at the mountains very early-and evenings will be full of
homework and more rushed since he will be working both days on the weekend all winter.
But,..And the but is important and key-. It is way way
better than him having a job in the city and us having to stay there or worse
having to leave him home for the weekend. None of us are ready to say goodbye
to our family cottage weekends. And this job? Makes sure of thatJ))
So today he was getting the uniform and meeting with his
new boss and discussing his pay and schedule and given his availabilities for
the cottage. He would call me and ask questions like “Am I here the 27th”? And although
I had many questions myself on the details I held back and let him handle it
a-z as it should be. He had one day he had invited his girlfriend to cottage
and he had to make the choice to work that day or not. It’s his job and his
decisions.
The pay is not that great-considering you have to be
there 8:30-4pm and work a max of 5 hrs and likely only 1-2 for private lessons
on some days unless they assign him a group right off the bat-we have to rent
the ski suit and really for lots of time spent at the mountain-he I not being paid for (like the job of lifeguards) .There
are a lot of cons. But he also gets a free ski pass which is a pro and his
confidence is high as it is considered one of the “coolest” jobs for a teen to
have amongst his buddies –so he is proud and happy.
Last night it was fun watching hime try on his new
monitor ski suit for the family and say how important he felt in a uniform. Pride
and happiness and accomplishment and responsibility were written all over his
face. It was really fun to see this side of him with a new job emerge. It isa
whole new world for him of checking meail to see his schedule and going to bed
earlier on the holidays in order to have energy the next day etc. We are having
fun watching this new stage (and maybe not as much fun with all the driving and early mornings during the supposed
holidays!!!) All completely worth it though and so thrilled and relieved that
his first job will be at the cottage as planned and hoped for!
His brother isn’t as thrilled. The two have been joined
at the hip for years and freestyle ski always together. They spend all the skiing
time together, Chase will now have a job and a new gang of monitors to socialize
with at lunch which will be important for his integration-but where does that
leave Bear? He is sadL hard
stage and hard to see our sweet middle son feel this separation as his older
brother enters a new stage at 17 yrs old.
So today Beauty had two friends come over after
competition and Chase wanted to drive the car full of all of us plus her two
friends. And you know what? We said yes. A job. A learner’s permit (almost license)
…the future is looking friendly for our little(big)guy. A first for him to drive a van full of kids but shows how good he is now and how confident we are in his driving abilities.
And then tonight we sat down and looked at the date for
his girlfriend to come to cottage at the end of the holidays(he chose to
negotiate schedule with job) –and true to his mom’s temperament he started to
plan and look forward to this occasion “What will we eat? Can we play Pictionary
and Spoons? Where will she sleep? Can she come and snuggle me on the couch at
9am when she gets up? Can we go in the Jacuzzi outside alone or does Beauty
have to be with us? What are the rules? I loved that he thought of these things
and asked me them. Sometimes they are hard questions to answer for parents -but
more than anything I love that we are discussing these answers rather than
fighting over them.
I loved his excitement over this first and every other
first. I love that he is excited to bring the girl he cares for into our
cottage life and excited about all the wonderful things this cottage life has
to offer.
Today gave me a glimpse into the future with our older
kids one day, driving, jobs, girlfriends and I felt proud that we are all looking
forward to a lot of the same things. As our first son-these are all firsts for
us and we are often sloppily navigating our way through these decisions-but
today felt like whole new terrain we are all entering with his first real job
and we felt our entire hearts spill over with pride.
Way to go Chase!!!
