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).
8 comments:
WOOHOO!!! Congrats on a very major milestone! Hope you are all well and life is treating you kindly. :-)
Thanks, Niksmom.
Hope all is well with you. Things have been going fairly smoothly lately (summer is much less stressful than the school year).
Joe
We had a shoelace first here a month ago.
Alex was probably around Buddy Boy's age or older when he learned to tie his laces. When he races, I tie them - until this year. We double knot them so they don't come untied but reading back through his blog you will find him reporting finishing races with a shoelace untied.
Well, last month at the Cabot Trail Relay in Cape Breton he recorded a first - "The 3rd Leg on Little River, Skir Dhu to Wreck Cove General Store. I finished in 58:03 and came in 8th out of 70 runners. In first few minutes I stop to retie the shoe lace."
Shoelace tying under pressure.... during a race.... (and still finishing in the top 10!) a huge accomplishment. :)
Have a great summer!
This is an AWESOME achievement. We've actually put this into Joey's IEP for the year, as part of our "getting ready for middle school nightmare" campaign. Great job, Buddy!
That's great to hear, glad to hear he was able to do tie his shoes!
Jypsy,
GREAT story!
It's funny how the little things in life make a BIG difference in everyday ease of living.
Joe
:D we just got there ourselves. Congratulations. :D
Negaraqq
bandarqq
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