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Show Come in when the sled stands up with you grassroots Copyright I $Z I 1986 In, V I Beckv 1 , f "rass j Johnson When the winter wind whistles out of the north and beckons my children to come out and play, they grab their thongs and head for the front door. Apparently, kids are born without temperature sensors in their skin. You wouldn't believe the number of times I have intercepted small bodies that were on their way outside out-side because they failed to pass inspection! One child was wearing a tank top and bermuda shorts in spite of that fact that there was a wind chill factor of twenty-five below. The daughter who insisted on wearing her sun suit outside to build a snowman is the same child that attempted to wear three dance leotards, two pairs of tights and her red, white and blue moon boots to the Fourth of July parade. Another child cried for half an hour after I confiscated her swim many Cream of Wheat commercials, com-mercials, but there is something about being a mom that makes me want to bundle up my offspring before they set foot out the door. My mother always used to say, "Come back in this house and put on a sweater or you'll catch your death of cold." That was in June. Once the snow started to fly, she'd drag all the winter clothes out of storage and each morning I went through the ritual of putting on the long tights, gloves, scarf, hat, coat, mittens and rubber boots with zippers. I hated rubber boots with zippers. I used to pray every night that the zippers in my boots would rust out so I wouldn't have to wear them anymore. I tried hiding them under my bed, floating them down a ditch and tossing one up on the roof of the barn. And I had the darnedest luck, because Mom could always find them. I thought my prayers had been answered the day I couldn't get them zipped up at school. I tugged and pulled, but those zippers wouldn't budge an inch. I supposed that my boots had trudged through too many puddles, snow banks and mud pies. I returned home with my boots in hand and a smile on my face. Mom simply took a bar of soap and ran it along the teeth of the zippers several times and they worked as good as new. I was sick. Now, not only did I get to wear tights, gloves, scarf, hat, coat, mittens and boots, but I got to pack a bar of soap in my pocket to school. The phenomenon of children resisting the way their mothers dress them has existed for generations. My mother recently confided to me that as a little girl, she gathered up all her winter underwear and poked them under the foundation of her house with a long stick. That way, grandma couldn't make her wear them again the next year. (Centuries from now, it is going to make one interesting archaeological find!) For a long time, I carried on the tradition of wrapping children in several layers of clothing. One day, before my oldest child left for kindergarten, kin-dergarten, I tried talking him into wearing an extra pair of socks before putting on his snow boots. He fiercely resisted and finally won out. (I did manage to coax him into wearing a ski mask to the bus stop. ) Upon his return home he was crying, complaining that there was no feeling in his toes. I knew it I thought. I should never have let him OUt the door withnnt an o-t,.,, r ' 1 socks on his feet. The poor kit were probably frozen! As I unfastened his boots, Irf remember the first aid tra had learned for frostbite removal of his boots, sh socks, I discovered that m were his toes numb, they : light blue. I had tied his bo f tight and had cut off the circ in his feet. After that, I tried to r bundling standards a little bit I've promised the kids ti I not force them to wear more two layers of clothing to go out. play in the snow if they, in tr have the good sense to comeis-before comeis-before the seats of their pants' to the sleds. "But what does that ( Mom?" "It means that if the sled up when you do, you come in- by BECKI GRASS JOHNSON suit and refused to fill up the wading pool. I told her we'd have to chip her out of the ice to bring her in. Maybe it comes from watching too |
