The Key to a (Wo)Man's Heart...

You know that old saying about how the key to a man's heart is through his stomach? I think that was a principle that went along with "boys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses" and other brilliant falling-in-love-isms of the 1950s. Still, in an idle moment, I couldn't help but wonder if there was an equivalent for women.

The key to a woman's heart is through... I thought about it, and I finally concluded that, if she has kids, the answer is:

...her chores.

It doesn't sound romantic, I realize. But here's the thing: when you are married, the wooing is less about being swept off one's feet and more about doing those small, daily, considerate things that make each other's lives better.

In my house, the keys to a woman's heart involve:

making the bed while she's making the breakfast;

cooking pancakes while she goes out for a run on a Sunday morning;

bringing her flowers to celebrate a big work success;

taking the kids out to play football in the yard after dinner, even helping the little one to score touchdowns in her Tinkerbell nightgown;

uncomplainingly taking the ailing dog out first thing in the morning and last thing at night;

starting dinner while she's picking up the kids, and then suggesting that there's just enough time for her to sneak in a run before dinner because you noticed that she "sounded really sad" when you talked to her earlier on the phone and she told you that she didn't get her run today;

spiriting the kids upstairs to start the bedtime routine, so that on her "staying home days," she can have five minutes to rejuvenate and check email before story time begins.

There are many other things I could list, but this captures the ones that I have most appreciated lately.  (Obviously, those lovely making-time-for-me-to-go running ones happened before the Great Broken Toe Debacle.)

(And if I'm fessing up, I started this list as a Father's Day post, a tribute to the thoughtful man I married, but then we had to put our dog to sleep, and things got busy with my summer class, and now here I am 5 weeks later, finally finishing this post and posting it.)

(But it doesn't mean I love him any less, only that I told him so in person rather than on the internet because I didn't have time to finish writing anything.)

And despite all those parenthetical qualifications and disclaimers, I still want to know: what would be on your list?

Got Lice? The AAP says, "Don't worry your pretty little head one bit!"

Perhaps you've heard of the American Association of Pediatrics guidelines for dealing with head lice? Their primary recommendation is that children with head lice should not be kept home from school.

Yes, you read that correctly. NOT. be. kept. home. Their logic is as follows:

1. Education is too important. Children with a problem that does not cause a disease should not be missing valuable schooling.

2. Head lice do not jump or fly and hence can only be spread by head to head contact. Children in elementary schools, unlike preschoolers, do not tend to roll around on the floor or touch heads. And simply sitting next to a kid who has head lice won't give you head lice.

3. While admittedly an annoyance, head lice are not an illness. They should not be treated as a disease.

If you want to see more about their position, you can watch a segment from this morning's TODAY show and read the accompanying short article.  Or go read the full AAP report (initially released in 2002 and reaffirmed in 2009.)

It is, in short, pretty horrifying how cavalier the medical experts are about this problem, treating it simply as a medical issue and arguing that "no nit" policies that are in place in schools are doing a disservice to children who miss valuable days of education while they are trying to get rid of head lice.

The full report is more nuanced, of course, but the TODAY show segment is reductive and misleading about how difficult it is to get rid of this problem, and is almost willfully negligent in not considering how lice may be spread or the disruption lice can cause both in classrooms and at home.

While technically, of course, the doctors are right that only direct contact with lice can spread lice, it is as if this recommendation was written by a group of doctors who have never actually seen an elementary school child (despite being pediatricians). In many elementary school classrooms, the children:

*  share cubbies, which means their coats and hats are touching, so one kid's lice can spread to another's hat.

*  have circle time rugs in lower grades, and reading corners filled with pillows in many classrooms.  All it takes is one kid with lice lying down in such a place for the next kid to pick up a louse or two.

*  have community property like art smocks (pulled on over the head), computer headphones, or the Birthday Kid Crown, that get passed from one kid to the next.

*  put their heads together to whisper secrets during lunch.

*  lean over each other's desks while working on group projects.

In short, elementary school and middle school children are kids, and they are friends, and they are in close contact eight hours a day. If one kid in the classroom has lice, and it is left untreated, there is nothing but certainty that other children in the classroom will get lice--even though they are no longer in preschool and "rolling around on the floor" as the doctor quoted on the TODAY show indicated.

To be fair, the AAP is not recommending that head lice not be treated. However, their sense of what it takes to get rid of lice seems woefully underestimated (one treatment of shampoo + a combing, then a follow-up combing in nine days).

They mention nothing of what I've seen in friend who have had to get rid of the problem: delousing shampoo and daily comb outs of the hair, HOT water washes and HIGH cycle drying of every piece of bedding, clothing, etc. with which the child has come in contact, daily vacuuming of the house, bagging up or any toys/items that cannot be washed. In short, about two full days of cleaning, plus daily maintenance for two weeks is neceessary to get rid of lice. It is tremendous trouble and expense.

What if you go through that as a conscientious parent, and then some other parents see these guidelines that say it's okay to send your kids to school with lice, and they do nothing? And then your kid gets lice again. And again. And again.

Because that's what will happen. Constant reinfestation.

The coverage on the TODAY show is shameful for not including any educators in their discussion to get another perspective on the issue.

What about the fact that a prolonged lice infestation causes tremendous itching, which is hugely distracting to a child trying to learn? What about the intense quantities of cleaning that a teacher will have to do in her classroom to try to ensure that a child with lice doesn't spread it to other children?

Surely no one thinks that children will learn better in an environment in which half the kids are driven crazy by itching, and the teacher--who already has enough on his plate--now has to do louse damage control too?

Surely, the prevention of spreading is far preferable to epidemic conditions? Surely no one thinks that lice are simply benign creatures with whom we should agree to coexist happily?

I can't believe the short-sightedness of this guideline, which could influence legislation or school policies.  Though I don't imagine many schools jumping to encourage lice in their schools, I can imagine the parents of students who are forced to go home due to lice contesting such policies.

At what point does common sense dictate that the standard for whether children should be in school is not simply "are they ill and contagious?" Because I, for one, will not be delighted if my kids' school changes its policy and says it's just fine for kids with head lice to keep right on coming to school every day before the problem is under control.

Of Limitations

You know how there are just some contests you know you can't win?

Like arm wrestling your husband, or out-running your long-legged hound, or out-eating your six-year-old when it comes to ice cream cake.  And so you don't even try.  Seems sensible.

Of course, then there are the contests you totally can't win, but you try anyway.

Like challenging yourself to lose ten pounds before the upcoming family wedding, or writing a new chapter every other week, or being in better shape at 40 than at 30. They are worth trying, even if you can't completely succeed.

And then there are the contests that are uwinnable due to the incontrovertible forces of gravity, dynamic motion, and other elements of physics I can't remember the names of. Those are the ones you are wise not to try at all. Ever. Unless you enjoy hurting yourself.

I am here to tell you that toe versus coffee table? Is one of those contests.

I am also here to tell you that in the throes of the immediate aftermath of the failure of that contest--i.e. right after you stop hopping around on one foot, muttering the fake curse words that are safe for your kids to hear--when you look down at your foot to see that your pinkie toe is sticking out at nearly a right angle from your foot, you might have one or two useful thoughts. Such as: sit down. Procure ice. Place foot on said ice.

You might also have one or two hairbrained thoughts as you clutch your way through the discomfort. Such as: you might suggest that your husband Google directions for relocating a dislocated toe.

Probably, you have married as well as I have, and he will instead Google to locate the nearest hospital (because of course you will be on vacation at the beach when this happens).

Although it might momentarily flit through your mind that this is an over-reaction on his part, and that the burgers nicely frizzling on the stove will taste so good in a few minutes if you just pop your own toe back into place and continue icing it, and that you know that no one ever puts a cast on a broken toe anyway but merely tapes it to the next toe over till it heals, and that it will be so much hassle to drive to an unknown hospital in an unknown town, and that the kids are hungry and you don't really want to drag everyone out the door unnecessarily...although all of this and more in the reluctance department will pass through your mind as your excellent husband is phoning for directions and mustering ice and shoes all around, I would like to go on record as saying that your reluctance is wrong, and his get thee to a doctor, pronto! mojo is right.

Because, invariably, your toe is not dislocated. It is broken. And not just any plain old broken either, but well and truly broken with the bones moved all over the place. (And believe you me, if I could figure out a way to scan my x-rays and put them up here, I would, just for the pure amazement value of seeing a bone snapped in half and turned sideways.) The kind of broken that takes three rounds of x-rays and multiple attempts at setting to get "not perfect but good enough" (the doctor's words, not mine). And something that takes a trained professional five lidocaine shots and a whole lot of counter-pressure tugging to put right (which is probably really horrible to watch, only I don't recommend watching) is really something that should not be attempted at home in between flipping the burgers from one side to the other.

In short: in case you were ever tempted to try to set your own broken toe while on vacation? Don't.

You're welcome. 

Please note: if you have ever borne children, this kind of injury can be mildly fun in a macabre sort of way. It looks very ghoulish and Frankensteiny, but compared to hard labor? No more than a 4 on the pain scale. In fact, if you've ever severely sprained your ankle--the kind of sprain where you are sure it's broken, only it isn't--this doesn't hurt anywhere near as much as that. The shock value, however, is very entertaining. 

The inability to go for any more glorious barefoot runs on the beach, when you are only two and a half days into your eight day beach vacation and just discovered barefoot running yesterday? Somewhat less enchanting.

Movement

Tonight I am thinking about verbs.  It all started because our family was walking down a small-town sidewalk this evening...

Except walking only describes what we grown-ups were doing.

The children were doing something else entirely.

It began as meandering along.  Despite the big floppy hat half-obscuring the little-one's view there were constant pauses to ogle the brightly colored trinkets in store fronts and comment on them.  The slow wandering and people-watching was punctuated by energetic leaping, straight up, so that taut fingers could skim the summery flags that decorated doorways.

Every so often, we would happen upon a sculpture or a large rock or a bench, and then sit was required. Unless climb and clamor seemed a better option.

When we got to crosswalks, it was impossible simply to cross while walking.  We had to hold hands and leap from one painted white line to the next. Or skip.

All the merchandise in front of stores required touching, and not just a tentative poke either, but a full on exploratory caress.

All the restaurant patio bands required dancing.

All the raised planters had to be treaded as tightropes, and the lines in the sidewalk had to be hurdled.

The three-foot-tall flip flop on display at the shoe store had to be tried on--both as a shoe and as a cape. Obviously.

While the adults on the streetscape moved forward at a regular pace, my children careened around.  Even holding ice cream cones that dripped incessantly in the humid air of hot summer evening, they did not sit still.  They snuggled up next to us on the bench, then stood up to gesticulate better with their cones, crossed the sidewalk, hunkered down in the shade behind a planter, mugged for the camera with their sticky, creamy grins, stood up again, dashed off a few feet, laughing, wiggled their way into the corner of a doorway...all the while licking, and splattering, and crunching and relishing their strawberry ice creams as if they had never had ice cream before in their lives.

I marvel at them.

Not just at their ability to move through a landscape with such effortless energy, but at their ability to change tracks constantly. Walk, skip, touch, pause, stare, dash, hold close, break away, leap, wander, flit, wait, smile, climb, squat, run...every few feet down the sidewalk, they changed their mode of moving.

Children, I suddenly registered tonight, move through their worlds with all of their senses vibrating. The sight of a fluttering flag moves their limbs to leaping; an ant I would not have noticed stills them in an instant.

They see possibility in every object they encounter. Something in them asks, "Can this be climbed? Swung upon? Jumped over? Touched? How would it feel if I leaned into it? Dragged my fingers along it? Dipped my toe into it? What would happen if I hugged it? Licked it? Wore it? Can I lift this? Smell it? Chase it?" And then they try these things.

Generally, they do not pause for more than a beat or two to register the sensation before they are moving again. Off to discover a new way to combine see, smell, hear, touch and taste into a balancing act of dizzying sensory magic. It is as if the cacophony of their movement trains them in understanding the world.

We finished our walk at the base of a bright orange sculpture of an abstract family, savoring the sensation of lying flat on our backs in the spongy turf, and admiring the half-pizza moon gleaming in the violet sky. I could have lain like that for an hour, content in my stretched relaxing.  The children lingered for two or three minutes, and then were off again. Running, climbing, laughing, competing, pressing their cheeks into the sun-warmed orange metal people, wiggling their bare toes in the soft prickles of grass.

Living large in their small bodies.

It is a mode I have outgrown. Grown-ups, I think, tend to live small in their large bodies.

But tomorrow, I promise myself, I will skip my way somewhere.