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My pouty little son apparently forgot how to snowboard

Saturday was an amazing day to be a snow sports lover: we were out of town at a great ski area 2 and a half hours from home, and the ski area had been dumped on all week. And then Saturday, what should appear but the sun - which we Seattleites haven't seen since...October, or so.

My hubby, my son, and a couple of friends spent the day at Mt. Baker Ski Area - and once again, I was faced with one of those ambiguous parenting situations that seem to keep cropping up.

The Boy is a great skier. He can ski all day while my husband and I snowboard; he hangs with the adults and is usually the last one to say, "Yeah, I'm ready to go home."

But he's got this cool thing going on, and since we parents primarily snowboard, and he just knows somehow that snowboarding is supposed to be more cool, he wants to board too.

He has a board and he's taken lessons, but frankly, it's more fun for the adults if he skis because he's just better at skiing and can go all over the mountain. But on this lovely Saturday, I said sure, you can board. After all, one of his friends was with us, and she is a beginner skier - so inevitably at least one parent would be stuck on the bunny slope.

We enrolled the kids in lessons for the afternoon so we adults could get some fun in, but figured we'd spend the morning with them.

Um, yeah. Apparently my kid forgot how to board between last year and this; he was doing what all new snowboarders do: fall. No problem, right? After all, when he was five years old and first learning to board, I taught him the four rules of learning to snowboard:

1. You are going to be cold.

2. You are going to get wet.

3. You are going to fall down.

4. It is going to be hard.

I guess he forgot the rules, and though I tried to remind him, he wasn't having it. "I want to go back to the car and get my skis," he said, near tears.

And here's my ambiguity. On the one hand, I don't want him to be a quitter. When something is hard - but accomplishable - we should push through, right? I knew that if he just tried a few more times, he'd get it; he has great balance and the movements would all come back to him.

But on the other hand, he's talked about ski racing. He could be excellent instead of just good enough - if he specialized. I'm not saying my seven-year-old is going pro any time soon, but there's no reason he has to try to master two snow sports. Why shouldn't he pick one and get really good at it if he wants to? (Not to mention the expense of maintaining two sets of equipment - oh my goodness, he is a lucky, lucky boy!)

So, I explained to my son that I already paid for a snowboard lesson, and he was going to take a lesson one way or another. I also said he needed to at least take a second run down the hill on his board before getting his skis from the car. But then, I gave him the choice: a beginner snowboard lesson, or an advanced ski lesson.

I told him he didn't get to make his choice until after that second snowboard run. I figured that would give his body the chance to warm up and remember how to snowboard.

When he reached the bottom of the run the second time, he looked pretty good on his board. His turns more often than not still ended in a fall, but he seemed more confident and calm.

But he looked at me and whined, "Can I get my skis now?"

Um, okay. I guess. So I did - and I switched him into a ski lesson. And then after his lesson, chased him through trees and over jumps, the boy on skis, me on my snowboard.

Did I do the right thing? I have no idea. I wonder all the time what effect the little decisions I make now as a parent will have on him. Did I just teach my kid it's okay to quit?

Or did I salvage a great ski day that could have turned sour, and is the fun I shared with my son worth the fact that I let him get away with whining?

Who knows. But again, it was sure easier before he could talk and walk...or ski and snowboard.