Ducks and hoofbeats

If the shoe fits

Sleep

I didn’t sleep last night. Nora was screaming and wrestling with demons only she could see or feel. If your child suffers (or has suffered) from any form of nightmares or night terrors, you know this is terrible to witness. I felt both impotent and exhausted as she writhed and scratched herself as if trying to rub off the “scaries.”

In a generalized effort to maximize the number of people in our household who sleep, we sometimes rearrange sleeping quarters when these episodes occur. Yesterday this meant Eric went to the guest bed and Nora joined me in our bed (the night before she slept with Eric). I thought she would settle in once she was next to me, as she usually does.

Last night it didn’t work. It took forever to get her to stop screaming. In reality, maybe this was just a few minutes, but screams at night inevitably feel louder and longer, stretched by my own exhaustion and sleep cravings. Even after she stopped yelling, she continued to breathe rapidly, scratch, and writhe. 

At one point in the wee hours, still tossing and turning, Nora asked if I could wrap my arms around her. I held her in what our family calls a “super cuddle,” enveloping her and gathering her against me, our limbs intertwined. “I love you, Nora Bug.” I said quietly. “I love you too,” she whispered. 

Her breathing regulated. Her body relaxed. And although I didn’t sleep, she sort-of did.  

I share this because, well —because. Now writing, I’m hoping for some sleep-deprived lucidity. I also realize that up to now, I’ve written considerably more about Clara than about Nora (though I recently wrote about Nora’s unabashed certitude here). I think this has to do with Clara’s age and the insights she shares. But Nora is not far behind and today’s post is prompted by her. 

Hoof beats & Ducks

I’ve heard that doctors (in the U.S. at least) are taught the adage “if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras” to focus on the most likely diagnosis rather than immediately jumping to rare possibilities. 

This is the med school version of the more common saying, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck…it’s probably a duck.” 

These two aphorisms draw upon Occam’s Razor, the philosophical principle that suggests we start with the simplest hypothesis – the one that leans on the fewest assumptions – as this is the most probable. 

Hoofbeats = horse. 

Looking ducky, swimming, quacking = duck.  

Our family now lives in Kenya most of the year, and there are somewhere around 300,000 zebras here and only 5000-7000 horses, so it’s one of many things I might get wrong by misapplying geographic and culturally specific adages. 

The duck one is a touch more complicated. ChatGPT tells me that in Kenya there are 4 non-duck birds that exhibit duck-like characteristics: the Egyptian Goose, the White-faced Whistling Duck (not actually a duck), the African Pygmy Goose, the Fulvous Whistling Duck (not a duck either). If you were to guess duck in Kenya, chances seem a toss up that you’re right. 

Acorns

A couple of weeks ago, Nora was playing on a geodesic dome-monkey bar structure when she stubbornly resisted (on brand!) Eric’s offer to help her down. She dropped from the top to the ground, landed on her feet, and collapsed in a heap yelling, 

“My foot! My foot!” 

Tears ran down her plump little cheeks. 

Actually, I wasn’t there, but hearing about this from Eric I can vividly picture the whole scene. I imagine the next moment involved Nora looking at Eric with a deep scowl-glower and accusing,

“You made me fall!”

The closest I have come to capturing the scowl-glower… Also, I think the sock mittens really tie the outfit together.

You would be shocked by the number of times Eric or I or anyone else in her orbit has  “made” Nora do something – fall, trip, put on her shirt backwards – often without even touching her. I don’t know where she developed this blaming habit, but note-to-self: I’ll have to practice heightened awareness when defensive and accusatory statements come from my own mouth. 

For at least a few hours after the jump-fall, Nora walked only short distances with such a pronounced limp we wondered if she had really hurt herself. A physical exam revealed nothing more than Nora’s foot and ankle, intact and normal for her. 

She demanded to be carried. We acquiesced. (Nora is very convincing). 

A psychological (mom) exam revealed Nora’s personality was also intact.

The next day we visited the same park. For a couple of hours, Nora had no apparent trouble walking and running around.

Until she did. 

As she crossed the park in her little purple-rainbow knock-off Crocs, I noticed a distinct hobble. She was all smiles and moving fast in her goofy Nora gait, but her right foot pointed outward, duck style, and she was dragging it. How could we have missed this?

I felt like a terrible parent. 

I turned to Eric.

“It does really look like something’s wrong. Look how she’s walking.”

We watched for a while longer as Nora and Clara gathered acorns from the nearby oaks.

He nodded. 

“Do you think we should get it checked out?”

I wonder-suggested out loud. What if she had a hairline fracture or something? I thought to myself.

“Nora, can you come over here?”

Eric called to her. Nora hobbled our way. 

I asked her if her foot hurt, and she shook her head “no.” 

Eric asked if he could see her feet. 

He took off her left shoe and examined the good foot. Then, he gently removed her right shoe. 

It was not a horse, a duck, or a zebra.

Her shoe was full of acorns.  

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

If the shoe fits…

I’m not trying to say doctors (or people) in the U.S. (or Kenya) – should jump straight to acorn shoes. Rarely will this be the condition. Occam’s Razor exists for a reason.

Rather, as I reflect on the lessons I’ve learned since moving to Kenya — and especially launching Good Natured Learning’s work to mainstream apple-a-day nature-based learning here — I’m grappling with both the universality of human and more-than-human nature connections and how counterintuitive reality can be. This makes me more motivated than ever to “turn to wonder” (to quote Kevin Fong from a PD workshop years ago). To remain open to learning from the Noras and other teachers of the world who – if we suspend our preconceptions – are everywhere in our lives.

Nora’s acorn shoe has also gotten me thinking about all the ways we can get into trouble when we are removed from the conditions on-the-ground (“kwa ground” as my Kenyan collaborators like to say) trying to innovate – or worse, dictate, how things should be in a distant place or context. When we make assumptions.

Unlike the hoofbeat and duck adages for which I believe I’ve raised some valid geographical and cultural hangups, the axiom “when you assume, you make an ass of you and me” feels universal.

Photo by Geranimo on Unsplash

Expanding Good Natured Learning’s work in new geographies, cultures, and contexts has provided a full rack of acorn shoes that seem to tread in the space between universal and hyperlocal. I’ll write about some of those in the coming weeks.

For now, I think the message is clear:

“When you hear hoof beats, think acorns.”

❤️, B

P.S. When we offered Nora a bag to carry the acorns instead of using her shoe, she turned us down saying, “The acorns scratch my foot.”