Many times, it's not the big things in life that make it worth it, but the seemingly smaller, more ordinary ones. Such is the case this week.
Buddy Boy is now 12.5 years old. We have tried to teach him to tie his shoes in past years, but never really had success. Even though we really didn't push all that hard, it has been "one of those things" that has led to a lot of consternation and frustration all around. Buddy Boy seemed to get to a point where he decided that he would NEVER be able to tie his own shoes. But like riding a bicycle, I felt that that was not so, as he had plenty of dexterity, both to play video games as well as build all sorts of cool things with LEGO kits. He can follow instructions for the LEGO kits pretty well, too.
We last took Buddy Boy shopping for shoes near the end of the school year. It was obvious that there were extremely limited styles available in Velcro strapped shoes in his size (like 3 pairs over 6 stores). We bought the style he liked the best of the lot, and resolved that THIS would be the year that we made a push to get him tying his own shoes, as we knew he would be much happier with the wider selection of really cool shoes out there.
We decided to wait until after our vacation, to give Buddy Boy time to relax after the stress of the school year. Well, after a bit of resistance/bribing/coaching/reinforcement over the last two weeks, VOILA'!
Buddy Boy is now officially able to tie shoes!
Life is good (even if it's more than a bit HOT lately).
