Today was the first family ski trip of the season. This activity is gobs easier than it used to be. These days I say: “we’re going skiing this weekend,” and everyone says “hooray.”

But as any parent knows, take an activity you used to happily schedule vacations around, spend absurd amounts of money on, and risk life and limb to do, add really small children, and you get stuff around which future therapy sessions will revolve.

When the boys were younger, I’d spend the afternoon prior to ski day gathering hats, coats, gloves, socks, long-johns, helmets and ski pants from wherever they’d been scattered the last time a big storm dumped enough snow on the driveway for sledding.