Learning One of the Most Important Social Skills

As we grow, we learn thousands of different social skills. We learn them from keys we pick up along the way (or, in the case of my children, through constant, nagging reminders delivered at varying pitches and volume, sometimes accompanied by largely idle threats of future repercussions or denials of privileges). They vary wildly in their importance. From learning to put the toilet seat down whenever supposedly liberated women are also in the household (come on--I have to put the toilet seat UP, so how is it not equally fair for someone else to have to put it DOWN?) all the way up to knowing when not to sock someone in the nose when being annoyed. Most of us learn these skills through one method or another. But what is the most important skill?

Gauging importance is difficult and there are many different qualifications one could use to rank these skills. For instance, if living together in a large, happy society is considered the most important qualification, then perhaps politeness, empathy, or an ability to fart discretely might be the most important skill to learn. Or if the child in question is being groomed for a life of super-villaindom, then an ability to manipulate or dominate another's personality would be the most important skill. For the sake of this post, I've decided to go with what I think is the most key element of social interaction--the very survival of the human race. What are the most basic and, thus, most important skills that we need in order to survive as a species.

Clearly this list could be argued and many nuances could be debated along the way. Loyalty and dependability are important skills to learn, and without them we cannot form cohesive bonds with other people. So those seem rather important. Being able to comprehend abstract notions of justice or fairness also seem as though they would lend themselves well to forming permanent bonds and creating lasting interpersonal relations.

But let's face it. Basic survival relies on our ability to live with one another. To not be actively repulsed by the people we share space with. On a Maslow's-type scale of importance, loyalty and fairness and all of those other skills would make a showing, but I think there can be little debate that the very foundation of the scale has to be our Ability to Not Excrete on Other People. Few other skills, it seems to me, can illicit a more negative reaction in another person than a lack of this one. And, in fact, if humans had no ability to control such things and divert away our various yucks, then society as a whole would quickly devolve. Nobody would want to have anything to do with anybody ever.

But I will take this one step further. Waste excretions are a problem. Few people want to be peed or pooped on--and those that DO want such things have MANY social problems of their own and likely aren't what you'd call "built for society" anyway. They are anomalies, and they deserve to be peed and pooped on for being so weird. That will teach them. But waste excretions are more or less contained by our inability to survive without clothes. Run around naked such that you could pee or poop on someone else freely and chances are pretty good that you'll be dead from exposure or some infection before you've had the chance to loose your bowels on many unsuspecting folks--not that they'd let you get that close anyway since you're naked and probably covered in your own filth. Thus, that problem eventually takes care of itself.

Then there's puke.

An ability to puke other than on the ones we love is, I think, the most valuable skill that we learn growing up. What is better than not being puked on? Nothing, that's what. Nothing makes me want to love and nurture someone else more than the safe, comfortable feeling I get from trusting that, no matter what, they will choose to puke on something other than me. And I can't wait until my kids learn that skill.

Not that I, personally, get puked on all that much. I would rather have my children puke on EVERYTHING in my house that isn't me. I'm a bit squeamish about the vile stuff. But Libby is a real champ about it. She has, on many occasions, put herself between our belongings and one of our kid's upchuck. She probably deserves some kind of honorarium for it. Maybe someday I'll build her a small statue, or not puke on her myself the next time I'm sick, in appreciation.

All of this is a round-about way of getting to the day of Halloween activities that Norah decided to make more interesting with the zesty combination of stomach contents that she yacked around a few different venues yesterday.

I know, I know. Poor baby. It sucks to be two and to not be able to describe what is wrong because you not only don't have the words to describe it, but you also don't have the frame of reference to understand what is wrong. Sure she used to be a major puker, but she doesn't remember any of that anymore. It's been, what, five months since she used to work herself into a puking state every time she started crying in bed. She deserves sympathy. But so do her parents. Especially me, because I am writing this down and clearly play some part in it all no matter how little I was actually barfed on.

She spent most of yesterday lying pathetically curled up in my rocking chair (which, thankfully, only smells a little like ralph today), and it looked as though she was going to keep the two of us home while Gabe and Libby made the trick-or-treating rounds. But, right at the last minute, she threw a mighty tantrum that convinced me that, no matter how much she threw up on everyone and everything along the way, that would be a lesser evil than trying to keep her home while Gabe was out doing something fun.

So we all went out and she rallied beautifully. Over the course of the day she had managed to only eat one bite of breakfast with a few sips of milk--which ended up on her shirt and in a bowl while we were at the bookstore for a "spooky story time"--and drink a glass of water and a glass of Powerade. Yet, while we were making the rounds in the neighborhoods, she managed to suffer through whatever candy she could get her paws on and then ate an entire bag of popcorn before we got home.

This, of course, she bathed herself and her bed in about 1:00 this morning. Despite a thorough washing of EVERYTHING around her bed, their room still smells like a frat house minus the desperation.

The start of our day. See? Perky, bright eyed, not the least bit looking like a vomit factory. We even managed to get her in her fairy princess costume. Though she takes after me in many ways, we don't share a love of costuming yet. She is not much of a fan of dress up. Probably she thinks there are enough REAL problems in the world to be adding fits of whimsy and fantasy into the mix. Kids these days.

Less than thirty minutes later, she was weepy and moping in Libby's arms at the store. This was after she demanded we take off her costume, but before the spewing started.

Spooky story time. About some poor woman who is being set upon by haunted clothing. Then she industriously invents the scarecrow with them. I question the authenticity of this story, though, for several reasons.

After story time, we took Norah home and Libby stayed with her because any suggestion that I stay home elicited shrieks and hysteria. Gabe and I went to his preschool for their trick-or-treeting event. His school is so cool. His teacher had each of the kids stand by her easel while she drew pictures of them in their costumes.

Fast forward to about 6:00. Norah is apparently feeling better as being around people other than me and Gabe has pushed the icky feeling stomach into the back of her mind. She REFUSED to be dressed in her costume, though, so the hand-me-down Spiderman hoodie had to suffice for dress up. Gabe, in case you're not up on your terrible 5-10 aged programming, is the Red Power Ranger. Finn is Bumblebee from the never-should-have-been-made movie version of Transformers. Gabe, it should be noted, HAS accepted my love of costume. Perhaps a bit too much. He would have worn that costume every day since we bought it six weeks ago if we'd let him. Though he claims not to be the Red Ranger in it. He thinks the Red Ranger is kind of lame. He wants to be the White Ranger (there isn't one in the show he's watching--yet), but I keep trying to explain to him that being White is even more boring than being Beige and he should pick a more interesting color. Say, purple. Or go way out there with a hunter-safety orange. He'll have none of it.

Speaking of Gabe and Power Rangers, I don't think I've shared what he wants to be when he grows up. When he first discovered the Power Rangers, he declared that he wanted to be one when he grew up (which wasn't surprising since he'd already said he wanted to be a Transformer and a G.I. Joe when those shows still caught his fancy). But the first few times he wanted to watch P.R., he caught on to the obviously negative vibe I was sending out about the show. If you've ever watched any of the early incarnations of the show, you know how bad it is. And, currently, it's even worse than it used to be. And he picked up on my snark. After a week or two, he decided that he didn't want to be a P.R. anymore because I didn't like them--those were his actual words.

I felt pretty conflicted about that. On the one hand, I had dashed my young son's dream of being a P.R. with my off-handed negativity. On the other, I had dashed my young son's dream of being a P.R. with my off-handed negativity! I was molding his taste and, hopefully, encouraging him to like things that didn't suck so hard and so fast! Nonetheless, my sense of guilt outweighed my hope that my kids won't like stupid things, and I carefully explained to him that just because I didn't like something didn't mean that HE couldn't like that thing. And that if he wanted to be a P.R., I would be very proud of him and help him keep his suit clean and his big mechanical animal thing serviced.

But he had moved on already. He decided that he wanted to be an artist. Which lasted a couple weeks. Now, he's decided that being an artist might not be that exciting, so he wants to be the first Power Ranger Artist. We'll see how that works out.

Anyway, Norah and May (she's a red crayon) in the wagon. The girls were having a tough time keeping up with the treating pace the boys were setting, so they got to ride to most of the houses. I'm actually a little apprehensive about the day when the boys are big enough to go off t-or-ting on their own. If they kept their focus and really applied themselves, they could easily cover a few dozen blocks and strip the population of a trash bag full of candy. We hit about six blocks--pretty sporadically participating blocks--and they filled their candy buckets before we quit.

Power Ranger and Transformer, bromancing and working together. It's a magical world we live in.

At the last stop of the night, Gabe was asked by our friends to show us his muscles. This is the pose he chose to do it. Not shown in the picture is Norah devouring an entire bag of microwave popcorn.

And, finally, a non-Halloween picture that I thought I would add because I saw it on the memory card and figured I would never remember to talk about it if I didn't do it now. Libby's cousin Kelly is a cheerleader for the Chiefs (I know, pretty cool, right?). Her folks, Kent and Kathy, sent the kids some Chiefs gear, including this little cheerleader outfit for Norah. And this picture makes me laugh because she looks a little psychotic. Cute still, but psychotic also. Which made it worth sharing.