Tales of Tying and Crying

We recently bought Ethan his first pair of sneakers that tie instead of Velcro.  Since Ethan is probably the only first grader left in the world who doesn’t know how to tie his shoes and I am the world’s worst teacher (no really, I am), this choice was not a good one for our family. 

After a very harrowing and unpleasant shoe tying session, and after both of us had dried our tears, I apologized to Ethan for not being more patient and explained to him that I just wasn’t very good at teaching people how to do something new.  “Yeah.  I kind of got that,” was his response.

So…unless Adam can start coming home from work well before bedtime to take over this shoe tying teaching business or we want to spend our weekends cooped up inside making bunny ears with our laces, or I want to spend my life savings on therapy for Ethan, I realized something had to change.  So, I found a great pair of slip on sneakers that don’t require any tying (or any other special skills that I am unable to teach for that matter).

I gave the new sneakers to Ethan the other morning.  He was thrilled.  So thrilled, in fact, that he performed a commercial of sorts while he put on his shoes.  “You just take them out of the shoe basket, put them on the floor, slip your foot in and presto!!!!  You have your shoes on!  No tying!”.  His voice rose an octave with each statement of delight.

Before I had time to go crawl in a corner and cry due to the failure of my parenting, complete laziness and inability to teach my son a necessary life skill, his excitement continued.

“You know what else would make your life so easy besides slip on shoes!?  The Twin Draft Guard!  If you ever start seeing your dollars start sliding under the door, just get the Twin Draft Guard and presto!  No more dollars slipping out by accident!”

Bewildered, I was certain I had heard incorrectly.  I looked down at the door and it looked pretty secure and draft-free to me…why (and how) would dollar bills slide underneath the door? 

“Dollars, Ethan?”

“Yes, your dollars.  They just start flying underneath the door and slide outside.  And then you lose them.  The lady on the commercial got a Twin Draft Guard and then she didn’t lose any more of her dollars.”

Then I realized he must have seen this:

I LOVE that the metaphor was lost on him.  His sweetness and sense of innocence made we want to giggle and cry at the same time.  I wish I could capture that forever.  And I also have to wonder… do you think the Twin Draft Guard people make any sort of mechanism to help with shoe tying?