Thursday, January 3, 2013

Magic Number Ten: The Winter Rule

Today marks the first day I actually drove my daughter to school.

I know, I know... that doesn't sound particularly strange... every parent drives their kid to school, right?

The thing is, it takes three to four minutes to walk there.  This is not a habit, nor anything I particularly enjoy. Driving a child such a short distance normally seems pretty silly.

But!

It's January - the coldest month of Winter.

In December, I walked her to school through snow.  I walked her to school while gigantic snowflakes dropped from above, and we shook ourselves off before entering the building.  I plopped into snow covered hills on the way home, making snow angels.  It just wasn't an issue.


That was December.

January is a whole different world.  This morning I went outside to take the dogs out to the back.  It was ten degrees.  No biggie.  Ten degrees is easily doable.

But there was wind.

I rushed back inside with the dogs and checked my Accuweather app on my phone.

Real feel: -6.

Ok.  That's a problem.  And yes... it truly did feel like -6.  I remembered back when I was around her age.  I would go to the window and stare at the thermometer outside, waiting for the arrow to rise up to hit the magic number 10.

Ten seems to be the be-all, end-all of numbers.  

At ten degrees, you have the chance of a perfectly fun day of playing in the snow for hours... or you may be stuck inside because wind chill has hit the negatives.  My father never bothered to check to see if it was warm enough for me to go outside and play in the winter unless it had hit ten degrees.

Not that I never went outside if it was a lower temperature - sometimes it was just fine outside at, say, 4 degrees.  But once I got outside, it was hard to get me back in, so he had to enact the ten degree rule.

I find myself doing the same thing, now.  I drove my daughter to school, because the wind chill was low enough to be dangerous for her.  She still has a problem with keeping her scarf above her lips.  She doesn't like the way that feels.  So the car is a great way to keep her safe.

Of course, like all cars, mine doesn't like the cold very much.

The alarm went off as soon as I parked, then started up again as I opened the car door to get back inside of it when I was done dropping her off!  So, it was freezing outside, and I looked like I was stealing my own car.

And people wonder why I hate driving so much?

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