Tag Archives: the parenthood

Ninety-One — Variety

It started with food; my kids are picky eaters and we are constantly changing the way we ‘do’ dinner to try to unlock their magic eating powers. I tried the ‘here is an assortment of fine foods, please enjoy any/all of them!’ approach for a while and they ate peanut butter sandwiches or the closest thing to that on the table, so now I am trying the ‘eat a bite before you get anything else’ approach and they are eating a bite and THEN eating peanut butter sandwiches so I declare the Hunger Games OVER because peanut butter.

Wait! Except Eli. Eli refuses to eat anything but the things he wants to eat. So on butter chicken night, he ate nothing for dinner. And on omelette night, he ate apple. On the bright side, he is eating a MUCH more robust breakfast these days because by 7 am he is sta-r-fuck-ving.

I know. It doesn’t scan, but I needed to put the word fuck in there because fuck. It is hard to make your children embrace variety. They fear what they don’t know. It’s a self-preservation thing.

In some respects, it’s not so hard. Music, for example. Since they were wee/born/fetal, they have enjoyed all the music I have to offer, all the music SA has to offer, all the music off the radio, some kids’ stuff, etc. In the car I stab at the radio buttons madly to find a song I don’t hate and then I leave it there for a while. Arlo loves SONIC HITS NOW which plays, well, all the hits, and Eli likes SONIC HITS NOW too but also ROCK AND ROLL and sometimes THE CBC / THE NEWS. Sometimes I override them, because I am driving and I get to choose.

They pick their own clothes. They pick their friends. They pick their own books at the library. I don’t like all of it, and they don’t like all the things I like, but variety. I am starting to think that the key to life is variety; understanding it, embracing it. Seeing, or even better, assuming that all the people you meet have different ideas of what is THE BEST EVER and it’s okay. It’s even great! It’s okay to not love Star Wars (that’s me) or not like Joni Mitchell (both kids) or hate sauces in general (Eli) or not be fond of carrots, because it’s a big world and just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean you get to tell other people to like it or not.

Sometimes social media acts like that kid who tells you what’s cool, what t-shirt you should be wearing, how you’re never going to have friends because you don’t like Lego Star Wars or you don’t like it the right way. If you only hang out there, you can forget what you actually think. Sometimes I get so wrapped up reading what other people have written on the Internet, I don’t get around to writing my own stuff.

Twitter is a wonderful thing sometimes; it is full of people who might get you, people you get. It is funny and sympathetic and sometimes exactly what you need. At the beginning, after a year of Twitter I thought it was cutting into my productivity. I was right! But the solution in these modern times is not to quit The Internet. The solution is to moderate one’s own intake. The solution is variety.

Luckily there are books and notebooks and real-life conversations with people. There is always something to clean or throw away in this house. There is always meal preparation and the fitting of my tongue with a steel sleeve so that when I have to bite it during dinnertime while the kids pick pick pick at their delicious food I don’t bleed all over my plate. There is always something else I could be doing, other than following a trail of links to the bottom of an internet pile-on. The world is big and wonderful and full of things.

Variety.

Eighty-Eight — In Which We Go With the Flow

We did things this weekend WITH the pack instead of against it.


Review: Superstore at mid-day on Thanksgiving weekend

4/10

Pros: All staple groceries were in their usual place, amply stocked.

Cons: Parking lot full of people driving like they are in a car-driving video game. Everyone trying to park as close to the door as possible. Store full of same people now driving carts full of turkeys and potatoes, dragging screaming kids behind them. Carts abandoned in middle of aisles while owners wander off looking for cranberry sauce.

Additional comments: Was kind of like cutting out a piece of my soul and feeding it to someone I hate.

Review: Playing with Saint Aardvark’s new phone

8/10

Pros: Shiny display. Nice camera. Functions well as a phone. Kept us entertained in the car for fifteen minutes while we waited to go pick up the kids from a birthday party (see next review)

Cons: An array of ringtones that all sound like they were taken from an episode of Survivor. “Rain stick banging on the empty coconut shell.” “By the ocean, in the rain.” “Good morning tropical birds.” (not real titles)

Review: Crash Crawlys Indoor Adventure Playcentre Extravaganza

5/10

Pros (for children): There are no rules except you have to wear socks. It is fine to scream as much as you want. Scream until your voice disappears. Please do. Children go here to enact their deepest primal desires (except for pooping outside) and the sound(s) and smell(s) of Crash Crawlys reflect(s) this.

Pros (for adults): Children do not require your attention for the length of stay, until they get hungry.

Cons (for adults): It is fine to scream as much as you want. Scream until your voice disappears. Please do. Children go here to enact their deepest primal desires (except for pooping outside) and the sound(s) and smell(s) of Crash Crawlys reflect(s) this.

Cons (for children): At some point, you will have to leave.

Additional Comments:

A. There is also a ball cannon, which is at the top of a climbing structure. It is a large funnel into which children can load small plastic balls and then, by pressing a button, or pulling a lever, exert pressure so that the great hissing noise of anticipated ball blast becomes the horrible, loud explosion of the ball blasting itself, a POP! that startles all the parents and minders in the building. One gets used to a certain level of shriekery, you see, but the random “hisssssss POP!” will get you every time because even if you think you are expecting it, you are not.

B. After forty five minutes in Crash Crawlys, the noise starts to seem normal, which is unfortunate, as it is not normal at all.

Review: The Applebarn (a u-pick apple farm AND ATTRACTION in Abbotsford)

7/10

Pros: 40 minutes from our house. U-pick apples. The smell of country. Fresh air. Pumpkin patch is free to roam; pumpkins are fairly priced. Small store sells lots and lots of apple cider, which is delicious.

Cons: Everyone East of a certain unknown line in the lower mainland also went there because it was a holiday and sunny and the heart of Autumn Motif Season. Narrow country roads crowded with SUVS looking for parking. Lineup to enter ATTRACTION. Fees to use ATTRACTION attractions (zip line, pumpkin cannon, pony rides, bouncy cushion, bouncy castle, hayrides) U-Pick apples actually at a different location just down the road from ATTRACTION.

Additional Comments: Pumpkin cannon sounds just like ball cannon at Crash Crawlys. Recommend against going to both Applebarn and Crash Crawlys in the same weekend.

Eighty-Seven — The Other Side

Starting work hit like a hammer to the shoulderblades. The night before I was all excited like when you go on vacation and you pack your bag and then unpack it and repack it forty times and check where your passport is and keep moving it to different pockets in your bag and then freaking out because you check the first pocket and it’s not there! (WHY WOULD YOU MOVE IT? To stay one step ahead of pickpockets, I guess.)

I even slept crappily because that’s a thing I do now, I sleep crappily if there’s any stress in my life, especially if it’s the night before my period starts, so yay, now it’s 5:30 AM and I’m going to work for the first time in six years and I’m bleeding and I’m so tired. So tired. Send iron.

I am tired.

I am tired.

I went. Three days in a row. It was challenging, and good, and will be much harder than my last position, which is also good because at least I feel like I’m earning the money not stealing it.

Going out of the house for a few days and doing other stuff has made me appreciate my home and family even more. Magic. I walk in the house and I don’t even want to check my e-mail. I take off my shoes and roll around on the couch with my big, stinky kids.

He obliged me by for once keeping his tongue in his mouth.

He obliged me by for once keeping his tongue in his mouth.

Speaking of kids, they have reacted predictably; with aggression, random outbursts of tears, exhaustion, and in one child’s case, a throat-clearing tic that makes us feel all wall-climby. Ahem. Ahem. Ahem. Ahem. Ahem. Ahem. The first night we tried reasoning with him and telling him that really there was nothing in his throat that needed clearing and maybe he could dial it back a bit. He stared at us like we were the craziest ones yet. Then I googled “seven year old clearing throat” and discovered that it’s a thing people do when they’re anxious, and THEN I felt kind of like an asshole for saying anything. Over the weekend as we’ve all chilled back into our normal household routine, the throat-clearing has subsided. Kids are weird.

Hoist your pumpkins high, boys!

Hoist your pumpkins high, boys!

Speaking of assholes, this evening I had the following conversation with Eli:

E: Mommy do you know what the B WORD is?
Me: Baloney?
E: No, the BAD B word.
Me: Buh..buh..oh. Does it rhyme with witch?
E: Yeah.
Me: Yeah I know it. Do you know what it means?
E: No.
Me: It means two things. A female dog is called a bitch…
E: Huh
Me: ..and when someone is acting mean, sometimes people call them a bitch. Usually women. It’s really not a nice word.
E: Sometimes you act mean.
Me: Yes, it’s true.
E: Should I call you a bitch?
Me: No, you should not. It’s not nice. It would be like if I called you an asshole.
E: (gasp) You said the A WORD!
Me: Yes I did.

Now we all know where we stand.

IMG_2239

Eighty-Six — A List

Oh I started a post today. I started one yesterday too. But. In honour of my friend Els who came up with a great writing prompt idea, here is a list of ten moments from today.

1. Hearing the kids awake at six AM (possibly earlier but I had earplugs in) and talking to each other in normal tones of voice in their bedroom while I did stretches on the carpet beside my bed. They were awake so early because the second best thing to Christmas? Is when your dad is putting a shortcut to the new Minecraft game on the shared computer and as soon as he goes to work you can play it. Squee.

2. Sitting on the carpet at kindergarten, Eli’s head on my knee, while I read “Lost and Found” by Oliver Jeffers to a few kids as part of literacy week at the school. When the boy and the penguin hug at the end, well, aww.

3. The absolute bright blue of the sky with red, yellow, and orange trees against it as I walked home.

4. Buying 6 kilos of coffee at Costco and having the checkout woman only say “Mmmm, smells good,” as she rang up my purchase.

5. Going to Burnaby Lake park to run as my reward for going to Costco.

6. I didn’t see a bear, despite signs saying there had been bear sightings. I did see a huge pile of poop that could only have belonged to a wild animal.

7. Moving from the shady parts of the trail to the sunny, having no idea where I was or where I was going. Just following the path.

8. Doing my post-run stretches on the top level of the viewing tower overlooking Burnaby Lake, the occasional frog croak the only sound. Looking up at what at home would be the ceiling, but today was the sky, all blue with just a few fluffy white clouds.

9. Eli trying to rub my feet by scratching at them with his fingers. “Is this the spot? Is this it?”

10. Accompanying them as the boys leaped, galloped, skipped the two blocks to Arlo’s karate class. Walking is so dull. Anyone can do it.

Eighty-Two — The Weather

Mornings are dark lately. I have to turn on a light before I get out of bed. My morning routine is getting harder and harder, even as I go to bed earlier and don’t drink before bedtime and don’t snack, etc. It’s just Autumn.

I know a woman whose name is the same as a season. Let’s say Spring, though it is not Spring. And in the few years I’ve known her, I’ve heard no fewer than four different people — also adults — make her name into a comment on the weather. I think that might be the worst. Weather small talk is bad enough, name small talk is bad enough, mix the two and how is this woman smiling at all, ever? I guess she’s aptly named. Like if I was named Storm Cloud.

This morning it rained and rained and rained but by noon it was sunny. My kids came out of school each wearing one of the other’s rain boots. Neither noticed until I pointed it out. One size 1 and one size 12. This morning they were mad and grumpy — maybe because their boots didn’t fit? — but by three o’clock they were happy.

There was soccer practice for Eli in the park at 5:30. Arlo ran around the outer perimeter of the park, lapping all the other soccer practices, his red hoody bobbing in and out of view. At one point, a rainbow appeared in the sky. All the five year old boys stopped playing soccer to stare at it. Arlo stopped next to me, panting. “I’m going to see if I can find the end,” he said, and took off running again.

“Imagine thousands of years ago,” said the soccer dad next to me on the bench. “What must people have thought when they saw rainbows appear in the sky.”

What would you think if you had nothing to explain a bright band of colours lighting up the sky. I would make up a story about seven gods who tired of the sky being only blue or only black and starry, who were bored bouncing on trampoline clouds all day, so they went to the other side of the earth and fetched giant buckets of paint and giant paintbrushes and they each made a beautiful streak of colour across the sky.

Art is important.

Eli has brought home reams of paper from school; almost all are drawings of square-bodied Minecraft characters holding sticks and saws and pickaxes. (One was a sheet of paper with only the word C A N D E printed neatly on it.) Dark crayon swirls over the heads of these poor people as they try to make their worlds out of nothing at all. I am hopeful his kindergarten teacher has heard of Minecraft (and understands that he does not play it, merely watches other people play it)(usually on youtube)(this counts as entertainment) otherwise I am afraid I will get a call to meet with the guidance counsellor about my son’s Violent Art.

How do I end this post? I have to cover the barbecue because it will probably rain again tonight and a wet barbecue invites mildew and terrible flavours.

The end.

Eighty-One — One Week

This week was only four days long because Monday was a professional day. At first I was upset about this because MY TIME MY TIME but by last night I realized that if this week had had five school days in it, we would all be biting each other right now. Yes. You and me and the kids and that guy over there. Everyone. Biting. Because we are all so tired.

This post was going to have pictures, but then when I looked at the pictures from the week there weren’t any, so you’ll just have to imagine all the pictures in your head. Web 1.0.

Last night we went to the elementary school to meet Arlo’s teacher and see his classroom. There was a welcome back barbecue before meet the teacher but we declined because the barbecue is disgusting and now that we’re at grade two, I refuse to eat more gross burgers. NEVER AGAIN. I made the mistake of being honest with Arlo when he asked why we weren’t going to the barbecue and then I heard him telling someone else that, “[my] mom doesn’t like the food very much” so I should probably watch my mouth? Although I have asked several people in the past week if they planned to go to the barbecue and they all made the ick face and said no, so I think the gross burger is a widely acknowledged thing, which makes me wonder why they don’t switch to a better burger? And before you can say it, no I will not be sitting on the PAC and suggesting the better burger. Thanks.

Anyway, after meeting the teacher there was playground playing and then we the Adults were tired and wanted to come home and the children wept bitterly because they NEVER GET TO PLAY THERE and I pointed out that they do, actually, every day, sometimes more than once, and Eli said BUT NOT IN THE EVENING and he had a point but still, we dragged them home, tired and tireder, from all the playing and learning of three days of school.

This morning, Eli was sad before 8:30 am because his lip was chapped. And then he said his feet hurt. And then Arlo said his ankle hurt. And then they just stood in the kitchen staring at me, yawning.

“Put your shoes on, please,” I said.

“How much..how..how much..is a PSP [Playstation Portable game playing thingee, which he is determined to buy himself]?” asked Arlo, not putting his shoes on.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Put your shoes on, please.”

“Can you look it up on the Internet?”

“Sure, while you’re at school I’ll do that. But before you go to school you have to put your shoes on.”

Arlo took a deep breath and sighed the kind of sigh people sigh when they are hoping you will notice they are sighing.

I ignored him.

He sighed again.

I became amused and laughed a little, the kind of laugh where you just exhale really hard and then it’s a laugh and it surprises you so you keep laughing.

“Why are you laughing?”

(And you can’t stop. Because you’re tired.)

“WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?”

“I..because…I’m imagining you guys…as kittens,” I said. This is not as random as it seems; we had been talking about cats a few minutes earlier.

Eli laughed too. Because: kittens! Haaa ha ha.

Arlo kept sighing.

“Put your shoes on, please,” I said.

So he did.

The walk to school was slow and complainish, but when I met them after, they were roaringly happy. One more successful week, filed away. OK, there was one good picture.

Friday the 13th walk to school.

Friday the 13th walk to school.

Seventy-Nine — Sweet Relief

Today was a gift.

We all woke up happy and mostly healthy. It was sunny, but not blisteringly hot, and there was a bit of that edgy September morning chill. I made Arlo oatmeal and Eli drank a glass of milk and I had coffee and wrote in my journal out on the porch. I had remembered to move the chair cushion last night so it wouldn’t get wet from the sprinkler that goes off every morning at four o’clock. It’s taken me all summer to remember to do that.

“Can you play Monopoly?” Eli asked me while I was packing lunches.
“I’m packing your lunch,” I replied.
“Am I going to SCHOOL TODAY?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“ALL DAY! FINALLY!” he said.

Indeed.

Also that’s as many words as he’s uttered at one time since last Sunday.

At 8:45 we got backpacks on and walked to school. My tank top was a bit optimistic, a bit more yesterday’s weather but it was a refreshing walk. We were caught up to by the neighbour kid and his mom and we walked companionably to school, the mom and I talking about resort vacations and the kids talking about whatever they talk about. Minecraft, poop, Lego.

The bell rang and Arlo went off to his classroom. I walked Eli to the kindergarten door and gave him a hug. “Bye,” he said. Parents were hanging around the door, peeking in the window, but I resisted the urge and walked away. Back down the hill, alone, carrying nothing but my keys.

It was 9:05 and I had five blessed solitary hours stretched ahead of me like an empty road. This was it, the moment I’d been waiting for for five years. Five years of spending all day every day with two small children and here we are, down to none. Not even a cat to bug me. (sniff)

I went for a run. I came home. I showered and stretched and folded some clothes and put them away. I made myself a smoothie out of a banana, some blueberries, some pineapple coconut water and the remains of my morning coffee. It tasted vaguely like a fruit mocha and was not as horrible as it might sound. I read things on the Internet. I tweeted. I went to Safeway and the liquor store and the vegetable market. I had lunch and read some more things on the Internet. I washed dishes and free-wrote for ten minutes and ate black licorice and did a load of laundry.

I walked in a most leisurely fashion back to the school and at 2:00 the door opened and Eli came out. He pulled his spare underwear out of his backpack, put it on his head and ran around the kindergarten playground with a few other kids. Then we hung out in the big playground for a while, because the big kids didn’t get out of school until 3:00. He found a cool caterpillar and played with two boys from his class.

After the bell, and Arlo joined us, we stayed at the school and played until nearly five o’clock. The weather returned from warm to September chill and I had trouble finding sunny spots to stand in. Two parent friends and I stood around and chatted while the kids played the kind of game you store in your head as a rebuttal for when people say kids don’t know how to play any more. Something about leaves as money and other leaves as taxes. There was robbery and tax evasion and restitution paid.

Reluctantly, we came home, had ice cream, then dinner, then more ice cream and now I’m having beer, and I want to say Thank You Friday, for being the day I spent this whole week wishing I could have.

Seventy-Four

Summer is ovvvvvver guys, over. OVER. This is it. School kind of* starts on Tuesday.

Morning.

Morning.

* Tuesday is a 45 minute day and Eli doesn’t start at all until September 9th

To celebrate, today we did many fun things: we spent the whole day with two of Arlo and Eli’s closest friends, went swimming (indoors, because it was cold and rainy), had Happy Meals at the World’s Loudest McDonald’s, Eli ate his first tooth, and then we played in the playground.

Swimming was great! The kids practised jumping off the diving board and I got stuck in the pool.

My wrist has been sore if I try to put my weight on my hand. I forgot this and tried to climb out of the pool by pushing myself out on my hands? You know how you do? Hands on the pool deck and .. push yourself out? Except then my wrist gave out and to compensate I twisted my hip or something and gave myself a weird thigh cramp. So there I was, helplessly hanging on to the edge of the pool, unable to climb out, going “ow, ow, ow” while my kid is applying a life jacket and preparing to dive in. This toddler girl was on the ladder and I needed the ladder and she stared at me while I said “ow ow ow” and of course this paralyzed her so she wouldn’t move and I couldn’t get out until she moved but she was scared to move.

This is the good wrist, but it looks much like the bad one.

This is the good wrist, but it looks much like the bad one.

Spoiler: I got out of the pool.

The World’s Loudest McDonald’s was one of those ones where there’s an indoor playground but it’s in a room and people eat in the room with the playground and there were children screaming, like, the kind of screaming where you turn around with your eyes all wild, looking for the person who made THAT NOISE so you can pull out their tongue and barbecue it while they watch. When we entered the room, a man who was leaving muttered, “NOW you’re in for it,” at me, so that was accurate foreshadowing.

Arlo + hexbug on his eye.

Arlo + hexbug on his eye.

While we were eating, Eli mentioned that he’d bit his tooth and it really hurt. I thought nothing of it, this is after all a child who once described the symptoms of hand, foot and mouth virus as “my throat intestines hurt.” Shortly before he wanted to go join the screaming screamathon in the scream pit, I noticed a giant bloody hole in his mouth and yes, he had in fact lost and eaten his first tooth.

"My mouth feels weird."

“My mouth feels weird.”

The weird thing is that even though he’s five and a half (roughly) and the same age Arlo was when he lost his first tooth, Eli is totally NOT OLD ENOUGH to lose a tooth. Nuh uh.

There was not enough playing and way too much screaming so we left the WLMcD’s and went to the school playground by our house, where the children started to show signs of exhaustion but continued to run around some and then at 4 pm we came home.

I am so tired. But in the best way. Good summer, y’all.

End of summer portrait, boys having traded clothes.

End of summer portrait, boys having traded clothes.

Seventy-Two — Please Don’t Make This Blog Into a Film

This summer has had a couple of themes. Swimming was one theme. You might have noticed it? Let us not talk about swimming again until next year. Amen.

Another theme has been Diary of a Wimpy Kid. These books, which are written in diary style and comic font and have lots of pictures, have completely consumed my kids for months. Arlo was bringing them home from the school library last year, but not really reading them, but this summer he started really reading them. Like, fast. Like, we were at the public library every few days picking up another one in the series. Then he started over again with the first one.

Of course if one child has [anything] the other child has to have one too, which is why we’ve had two library copies of every Wimpy Kid book in the series kicking around the house all summer long. Ask me about my fines!

We still read to the kids, of course, even though they can read to themselves just fine, so bedtime or chilling out time means I get to hear Diary read out loud, or read it myself. It’s not my favourite book, but it makes Saint Aardvark laugh for real sometimes so he gets to read it, if at all possible.*

And then the kids re-discovered that there are three Wimpy Kid movies on Netflix so one of those movies has been in constant play during screen time for a week now and I’m getting to that saturation point I remember so fondly from their toddler days, when I would find myself analyzing the motivation of the blue Wiggle or the psychological makeup of Caillou.

To that end, the things I have observed this summer about the Wimpy Kid and the reason I will not be sad when we move on to a new obsession:

1. Greg Heffley (the Wimpy Kid whose diary we are reading) is a self-centred jerk and it’s amazing he has even one friend.
2. Everyone is EITHER mean OR gets made fun of.
3. Older brother (Roderick) is mean AND rude AND stupid (but I do love him in the films, he is adorable)
4. Adults are ALWAYS idiots.
5. Girls are EITHER horrible or unattainable goddesses.

Now, yes, I know, it’s not written for me any more than Pokemon and Beyblades were written for me. Broad brushes painting tired stereotypes are not the worst thing to find splashing around on your face, right? The series begins with Greg starting middle school — grade six — so I get that it’s reflecting a reality, that of the self-absorbed, insecure, cut-throat pre-teens and teens that populate such places. But is it really that bad? Or are we making it worse by creating this fictional reality for kids to find their reflections in?

You see what I mean about the analysis. Clearly it is time for summer vacation to end and for the real world of school to start up again. After repeated viewings of Diary I have to remind myself that my kids are only going into grade two and kindergarten, not middle school, and that they are not, overall, big jerks. And… breathe.

* He is, however, increasingly irritated by Eli making him start reading at the same place every night. Eli seems to love the first forty pages of the first book and SA just can’t seem to get past it. Poor guy. I’d offer to help, but I’m not going to.**

** THAT right there is Wimpy Kid behavior. Oh god. I’m going down with the ship.

Seventy-One — Shoes

Look at this shoe. Is it not the most adorable, bright, fun-looking shoe you have ever seen?

Bloo shoo.

Bloo shoo.

No, it’s not mine. It’s Arlo’s. THIS is my shoe:

"Does this shoe come in 'cute'?"

“Does this shoe come in ‘cute’?”

Maybe I like the blue ones so much because they are the size of my big toe? Anyway!

Traditionally I buy cheap runners for my kids. I don’t want to spend adult shoe prices for kids’ shoes, so I don’t. But they are getting bigger and more active and harder on their shoes. Now that I’m pondering spending cheap shoes x 3 per year maybe the good quality shoes are a better idea? Hm.

So today I bought the awesome running shoes for Arlo.

“I love them, but,” he said, “I don’t know how to tie laces.”

“That’s OK,” I said, “we have those curly no-tie lace thingees. And anyway, maybe it’s time you learned to tie laces?”

He looked skeptical.

When we got home I found the curly no-tie lace thingees and at great expense to my knuckles and fingertips, threaded one through the eyelets of the shoe. It looks awful; the laces are black and the shoes are neon. Just dumb. This is dumb, I thought. Everyone learns to tie a shoe some time. The entire world is not made of VELCRO. Why, back in my day you had to tie a shoe before you could start kindergarten! Dude is going into grade two!

Being a modern parent, I googled “teach kid tie shoe” and that’s how I came to “The Magic Fingers Technique.” Apparently it’s a way to learn to tie your shoes in FIVE MINUTES! Well! I thought. Here we go. Saaaaved by the Internet. I watched the video, a little six year old girl tying a shoe. I watched it all slowed down. I tried it. I totally failed to tie the shoelace.

What? The heck?

I watched the video again, paused it, went slow. Great news! I have a missing part of my brain. It’s the part that lets me interpret “put your thumb and first finger in front of lace.”

I tried it five times and it didn’t work. So I tried tying a shoelace very slowly, the regular loop, thread, pull way, just to make sure I can still do it, and I can. Whew. The plan now is to a) try it my way first and then b) show him the video and see if he perhaps has the part of my brain I am missing. It would explain a lot.

Do you have thoughts or tips on shoe tying? Are your kids eighteen years old and still have no idea how to tie? Or did you teach them at age 3? Let me know!