Kiteboarder´s life...... being a parent?

[Osprey1]

I just started getting my first passes, back to blind's and am now working on NIS's. For myself conditions have to be mostly dialed for freestyle progression. I'm in my late thirties now with a kid on the way, but one of my goals in life was to at least be able to nail Slim Chance's and Mobes before I get too old and have to just ride strapless all the time. I work a full time job and can't get out before 6:00 so weekday kiting does not really work. Moreover, our forecasts here aren't reliable until maybe 12 hours before so when it's windy I just go, can't really plan far out. That being said I pretty much drive every weekend to HR to kite, but the wife is not into driving 8 hours every weekend.

Once I have a kid is the wakestyle progression over?

[KiteSplosh]

One word - Kitecreche!

You wont pull this off until they are at least 18 months or so... but it does take some organising so you can get recruiting now while you are sleep and kite deprived.

You need at least 3-4 other like-minded kiting dads with kids of similar age. Just rock up at the beach (preferably one that has some shelter from wind and sun) with kites and toys and take it in turns to kite versus babysit the 'creche'.

Win for you getting out on the water (albeit for 50% of the time). Win for wife getting time off from the kids. Win for kids getting a fun day with friends on the beach playing with cool toys they haven't seen before.

Obviously you need a pool of dads you would trust with you kids' lives, and especially at first go for a low number of kids to adults (e.g. 4 dads, 6 kids, 2 on water at any one time, 2 looking after kids at any one time). As kids get older the ratio of kids to adults can be increased.

Obviously getting the trust between the dads (and the mums) is key.. hence start recruiting now for 18 months time.

good luck and congratulations - having kids really is worth it

[acctx]

I have dropped a lot of other hobbies, but my wife knows kiting is a priority. I now kite and mountain bike only. When I go out I dont mess around on the beach. I get rigged up and get on the water. when I get off the water I dont hang out with the other kiters. Mountain biking is good because I can ride trails behind the house. I can go for 1-2 hours and get a good workout. This minimizes my time away so I can maximize my kiting time.

When there is no wind I watch the kids and do other dad things as much as possible.

We have had only 1 windy day in the last month and on that day we had a kids halloween party that I "had" to go to. I ended up not kiting.

The beach on a windy day is no fun for kids and wife so I havent ever been able to make that work out.