Better To Get Dirty And Wash Than To Miss The Muck And The Hugs In The Trenches

What a weird evening and morning. As I type, my two youngest children are watching a cartoon whose characters sport thick British accents, and for whatever reason, I'm finding it both wildly amusing and a little annoying. Anyhow, Faith threw up this morning (albeit minutely and with no other symptoms at all - I think it was more of one of those choke on your breath kind of things), so I've let her stay home from school today. Maybe an extra day of watching Mom do nothing but laundry will cure her ailment, which is possibly nothing more than a case of misplaced embarrassment.

After cheer practice last night, the director told me discreetly that the neighbor girl she brings with her to practice has lice. I am close enough to my friend to have been able to ask her "why, oh why then, didn't you tell us when practice first started?!" She is a hair stylist by trade and, she explained, had just discovered the problem for herself a couple of minutes earlier. In hindsight, I am glad. I am afraid I might have had more of a more knee-jerk reaction had we known any earlier. Apparently the girl's mother either didn't know - or more likely, didn't care. The little girl in question, C., is so very sweet and eager to please and so undeserving of her home life, or rather lack thereof. We coaches have the humble honor to be C.'s chosen adopted mother figures and I want to protect her little heart even more than I wanted to protect my daughter's beautiful blonde hair. The girls continued to play together as we talked and Robin assured us they probably had not had enough contact to be affected. I, on the other hand, had been so sweetly hugged several times earlier in the evening. We give hugs almost habitually. It's not that any one of them is particularly meaningful individually, but relenting at an embrace would have been. Finding out about the lice late in practice allowed me to reason that any transfer, if it were going to take place, probably already would have. It gave me a chance to temper my reaction thoughtfully. So after practice ended normally, Faith and I went to the store to buy treatments, just in case. The shampoo was smelly and I believe Faith probably had a case of self consciousness when she got up this morning, even though the smell is now barely detectable.

It's been a difficult year for Faith, realizing all on her own that the world is marred. I don't tell her about C.'s problems, but she figures it out. We had a long discussion last night about C. and how to handle the blunt details she sometimes offers about her family. She's not one to act out, but instead to just spill matter-of-factly what's happening - divorce, neglect, and a lot of fighting and frustration - stuff a lot of seven-year-old girls aren't yet familiar with, precisely because they shouldn't have to be. I find myself walking that fine line between wanting to protect my daughter's fading innocence and wanting to protect a precious little girl from not having the friendships she so desperately needs. I don't ever want to be too hasty in pulling my daughter away from her. If God had not allowed our ignorance last night, I might have been.

C. is the stunning product of some spiritually desperate parents and a God who almost tangibly fathers her on their behalf. She is so proud of her Jesus and I am proud of her. Sometimes I wish there were a shampoo that would wash away the "sins of the fathers." I guess there is. I just have to try to persuade people to read and believe it. Then my hope would be that we ALL would rinse and repeat daily!