Years ago I took my daughters skiing. They were little—about five and eight years old. Big day for them. Big day for me. We made the drive. Parked the car. Hauled the bags. Went through the whole routine. Sometimes you just have to let them forget the mittens.

Rent the skis. Buy the lift tickets. Boots on. Helmets on. Everything ready. You know the drill.

We walked out onto the snow and headed toward the chair lift. That’s when I noticed it. One of the girls didn’t have her mittens. Not one mitten. None. Everything else? Perfect. Skis, helmets, goggles, lift tickets, jackets, snow pants. The whole production. But no mittens.

And if you’ve ever been on a ski hill in Minnesota, you know the rule: no mittens, no skiing. It’s just too cold.

Now this is the moment where a dad can lose his mind.

You’ve invested the time. You’ve spent the money. You’ve hauled everyone out there. And now something simple—mittens—stops the entire day.

But instead of getting mad, we just stayed calm and started working on the problem. Sometimes you just have to let them forget the mittens.

First step: check the bags we brought with us. Nothing.

Second step: go out to the car and search everything again.
Still nothing.

Back inside we sat down for a minute and thought through our options.

Maybe we could buy some mittens in the shop. Expensive? Sure. But it would save the day.

No mittens for sale.

Okay, next idea.

Maybe the lost and found had something we could borrow for the day. Return them later. “Lose them again,” so to speak. Nothing there either. At that point the situation was pretty clear.

No mittens. No solution. No skiing.

So we calmly unwound the whole morning. Returned the lift tickets. Returned the rental equipment. Got refunds for everything we could. Packed up the car. And drove home.

Were the girls disappointed? Of course.

Was I disappointed? Absolutely.

We had invested a lot of time and energy just to get to that point. But the day still turned into something valuable. Because the real lesson wasn’t about skiing.

The lesson was simple:

Bring your gear.

If you’re going somewhere that requires equipment—skiing, sports, school, travel—you make sure you have everything you need before you leave the house.

Better yet, pack it the night before. That day also turned into a quiet lesson in something else.

When things go wrong, you don’t have to panic. You don’t have to get angry. You don’t have to find someone to blame. You can stay calm. You can look for solutions. You can explore the options.

And if the situation can’t be fixed, you can simply make a new decision and move forward. We drove home that day without skiing. But the girls learned something important. We never forgot our gear again. And honestly, that might have been the best part of the trip.

…And honestly, that might have been the best part of the trip.

That’s fatherhood sometimes. You plan the day. You pack the bags. And every once in a while… someone forgets the mittens. And that’s okay. Because sometimes the lesson is better than the ski run. It’s okay to let them forget the mittens sometimes, too.

If you want to celebrate moments like these and connect with other dads who answer the call, join us for FATHERS EVE 2026 on June 20th. RSVP to gather virtually at 8 PM across all U.S. time zones, or host your own local event HERE.