The first decent snowfall of the season has always been one of my favorite moments. And this excitement has only been heightened since I became a parent. Unfortunately, I’m in South Africa with my family now, so I missed this weekend’s blizzard. But for me, last year’s snowfall was the most exciting one yet. My kids were finally old enough to enjoy the festivities that accompany the first whiteout.

The night before the storm I watched the winter weather advisory on television with great anticipation. My husband, hailing from the tropical port of Durban, South Africa, couldn’t fully relate to my childlike eagerness. Little did he know, but I had great plans in store for the next day.

As predicted, it snowed tens of inches. Enough to cancel my sons’ schools, but not enough to make it impossible to get around. I was the first in line at the neighborhood toy store, and at 10:15 a.m., I was giddily dragging home two saucers.

My boys could sense my excitement and they, too, were glued to the windows. The sun was shining. It had stopped snowing. This was winter in New York the way I remembered it from my own childhood.

I first bundled up myself and then the boys – a laborious process well-known to all parents who have ever taken their children sledding: the long johns and snow pants, turtlenecks and fleeces, hats, gloves, and boots, and last minute trips to the bathroom.

We were ready. As I left the building with the boys in tow, I felt a burst of gratitude that we live so near the park. Within minutes we were at the little sledding hill, and while it was still early, we were by no means the first to arrive. In the winter wonderland that had transformed Central Park, many children were already sledding. Bursts of giggles and exhilarated whoops and shrieks could be heard in every direction.

The boys traipsed to the top of the bunny hill. My oldest hopped on his sled while I jumped on with the younger of the two. Off we went, spinning and sliding, racing to the bottom, where with a big thud, we all landed in a heap.

I was laughing with sheer delight. What could be more fun than this, I asked myself, savoring every second of this Kodak moment.

And then I heard it. The distinctive shriek of my younger son, Josh. And it was definitely not a shriek of enthusiasm. “I’m cold,” he wailed. “There’s snow on my face,” he sobbed. “I want to go hoooooome!”

I looked to my oldest for support here. Surely he must have felt the wind in his hair. His heart must have skipped a beat or two as we flew down the hill. “C’mon. Let’s do it one more time,” I bellowed with a big smile on my face. We had, after all, been in the park for no more than five minutes. This was a mere fraction of the time it had taken us to put on our snow gear.

“I’m cold too, Mommy,” moaned Jacob. “And I think there’s some snow in my boots,” he said pathetically.

Josh kept wailing, and Jacob looked at me, his baby blues tearing with the frost. “That was fun, Mommy,” he said plaintively. “Let’s go home.” And much to my dismay, we did.

We made hot chocolate and played four rounds of Trouble and six rounds of Hi Ho Cherry-O, capped off with three rounds of War. It was a splendid winter afternoon.

It’s hard work not to project your own fantasies onto your children. My desire to pass along my wondrous childhood winter experiences to my kids almost eclipsed my ability to properly see the situation for what is was. My boys – only 5 and 3 years old – were definitely not ready for the full on sledding experience.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, I feel a great deal of pressure to expose my children to as much as possible, particularly during these early years. Should they be swimming by 3, on skis by 4, playing chess by 5, tennis by 6, and competitive soccer by 7? Of course not. That wouldn’t be possible – or would it?

“There’s this one family I know where the kids are amazing skiers and tennis players and swimmers, and have all been taking computer lessons since before they could talk,” said a close friend. “Part of me wishes I could give my kids all that these kids have been given. On the other hand, part of me can see that this race is absurd.”

She added that she herself was never exposed to these sports when she was a child, and that she had always regretted never being able to feel comfortable on the tennis court or the slopes as a result. “These are the years to effortlessly introduce your kids to certain activities. It’s hard not to feel compelled to expose them to as much as possible.”

But at the same time, you can only do so much. “Your kids can’t do everything, let alone do everything well,” a mother of three teenagers told me recently.

And of course she’s right. The trick in the early years is to select a few things that matter to you and your partner, and later on to remind yourself to take your cues from your children. It is important that your kids are good at something. They needn’t be – even if they could be – really good at everything.

A few weeks ago, a friend called and asked if my son, now 6 years old, wanted to share a ski lesson with her daughter at nearby Thunder Ridge the following weekend. My friend wanted to get her daughter on skis before the big ski vacation out West, and I wanted to get my kid on skis before we headed for our extended stay in South Africa, where the only skis are those attached to motorboats. “Absolutely,” I said. “Count me in.”

The day of the lesson arrived and the temperature was in the teens. The wind was howling and the sun was hidden behind thick layers of clouds. My thoughts turned to last year’s sledding incident.

“Skiing will have to wait another year,” I mournfully told my friend over the phone. She could hear the regret in my voice. “Why do you even bother with the skiing?” she asked me. “You know your kids are going to be tennis players anyway.” But will they be able to happily go on the college ski trip, I wondered. I had to remind myself, some things really don’t matter.