Knowledge=Love

Ollie in one of his brief hat wearing moments

Snow Day... Hats off (or on?) to mama's everywhere!

We woke up Monday morning to an absolute winter wonderland (today, an absolute mess but that's why you have cute brown fur-trimmed snow boots, right?). I had the great pleasure of telling my son Nicholas that his school was cancelled for the day. "No way! YES!" he screamed. This was followed by some celebratory dance that only a 10 year old boy could create. It was his FIRST official "snow day".... EVER! Unbelievable, right? In his 2 years of preschool and 4 1/2 years of grade school here in NYC, he'd never had a snow day. I'd always felt a little sad about that because I grew up in the midwest and experienced the joy of snow days on a regular basis as a child. In fact, we had snow days, ice days as well as "there's a chance of snow or ice" days (and still managed to get out of school for the summer by May 14th! I look back at that with some concern, did we really log enough school days? I can't see how). Anyway I sat with my coffee and watched Nico blissfully running around the apartment planning his most amazing snow day; some tv, sledding, video games, hot chocolate... 

First up, sledding. After 30 minutes worth of "Mom, I can't find gloves, where's the other glove?... did you move my snow boots?... mine, mine, no, that's my sled" Nicholas and Oliver headed for the door. I yelled after them, "Hats boys, don't forget to put on your hats please". Every mother is familiar with the looks that follow the put your hat on request- eye roll and a "it's not thaaat cold, mom" from the oldest and a sneaky "game on" challenge from the younger (read- put the hat on my head, I'll take it off, you put it back on, I'll take it off over and over and over...) Btw, I forgot to mention that my babysitter Zoey (love her!) took the boys sledding for those of you wondering if I really let my kids go sledding in Central Park alone. I consider myself a laid back mom but not that laid back. Anyway, the trio departed, Nicholas with his hat on his head and Oliver, hat in hand. 

I closed the door, sat down at my computer to begin a day of work, assuring myself it wasn't such a big deal if Oliver didn't wear a hat sledding. At the same time, I was wondering how much body heat his little body was losing by not wearing his hat. I ended up spending the next 20 minutes googling body heat loss. 

Did you know... the belief that we lose most of our body heat through out heads is actually a myth? What? Gasp! Yes, that's right, a myth. (great, 30 minutes of sledding prep for what?!) Apparently, it all began with an old military study from the 1950's. The study suggested that the subjects wearing arctic survival suits lost most of their body heat through their heads. Fair enough, except what wasn't considered at the time was that their heads were the only bare part of their bodies during the study. We typically don't lose more than 10% of body heat thorough our heads and truth be told, any uncovered part of the body will lose a similar % of heat. "The face, head and chest are more sensitive to changes in temperature than the rest of the body, making it feel as if covering them up does more to prevent heat loss. In fact, covering one part of the body has as much effect as covering any other. If the experiment had been performed with people wearing only swimming trunks they would have lost no more than 10% of their body heat through their heads," according to Indiana University scientists Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll.

So, Mama's, ultimately we're doing the right thing, keep trying to get your little ones to wear those hats (and gloves and coats.. zipped!) but don't freak out or feel bad if sometimes you lose that battle. Hats off to you for trying!