There’s a certain shoe store that I take the kids to when they have, yet again, outgrown their old shoes. I’m not sure what it is about this certain shoe store, or if it’s shoe stores in general, that makes my children lose their minds. One time I had a stack of shoes for Maggie–she needed tennis shoes, and a dress shoe, but we also lucked into some clearance sandals for the next year that were too good of a deal to pass up. But by the time we got to the checkout, she had pushed me one time too many, and I made a show of telling her she would not be getting ANY OF THESE SHOES, and I set them on the counter, apologized to the clerk and we left.
I wish she had cared just a bit more. But like with most things, she was of the “Whatever!” attitude and the next year we bought full-priced sandals and I realized this was one of those times I had failed ro prove a point and shot myself in the foot at the same time. That time I didn’t let her go to the circus, she remembers that and talks about it often. The time I wouldn’t buy her shoes that she didn’t really care about? Not such a memory.
Fast forward to the other day. My kids managed to make it until the beginning of June with the same pair of sneakers from back-to-school shopping. This is unheard of around here because their feet grow fast enough that usually we buy another size by January. We had made it this long, but Nick’s shoes were falling apart and he had mentioned that his toes were scrunched up. (For Nick to mention something like this, pretty much means he was folding his foot in half to cram it in his shoe.) We went to the shoe store and Maggie picked out a size of women’s size 8 1/2 shoes, thankyouverymuch. Now it was Nick’s turn, and I managed to find the elusive velcro shoe that’s not horribly ugly in a boys 4 1/2. Because he has a giant foot, in theory, he should be able to tie his shoes by now, but he’s also still a six-year-old with below average motor skills. So we found a pair of shoes (they happened to be Wide, which he doesn’t actually need) but they fit his foot and were a good price so I called it a win. And then he pulled the “I’m going to go crazy in this shoe store and watch my mom lose her shit!” And what happens when you do that? Why, you don’t get shoes, that’s what happens.
His shoes were put back, we paid for Maggie’s, and left. And once again, he didn’t really care. And I cared a whole lot.
It was two days later before he complained about his shoes being too small again. It took all my restraint to not scream “Then you shouldn’t have acted like such a punk at the shoe store!” Instead, I asked a few leading questions until he put the pieces together and figured out he was stuck with small shoes until I decided he was “ready to try again.” Because this was something I felt he needed, it was only another day before I asked in a very serious tone if he was ready to try again and he said yes.
We set the ground rules: 1. No one was touching the stupid wheel that spins, which is the source of much of my grief.
Yep, pretty much that’s the main ground rule.
And it worked. We tried his shoes on again (I was second guessing the “wide” thing) but they fit and we paid. He wanted to wear them home, so I let the salesman ring them up and then handed them to Nick to put on. High on my list of summer goals is to not do for the children what they can do for themselves. The each have things that they can do but prefer for me to do. For Maggie it’s emptying her lunchbox/putting dishes in the dishwasher. For Nick, it’s putting on his shoes.
So I was going to set precedent early and hard. New shoes. Shoes that he puts on himself. Always.
He sat on the floor near the register fussing and trying to talk me into “helping him” (“You mean you’re not going to help me, mom?”) I stood my ground and he sat there for a few minutes. I talked him through it and eventually he got one on. It was frustrating because I knew he could do it, he just didn’t want to. I looked up at the salesman who had long-ago moved onto another task.
“You don’t have kids, do you?” I asked him. (Which in hindsight was a rather bold assumption, but he was young and looked a bit bewildered at the whole situation with my son. I figured most parents would “get” what I was doing.)
“Me? No. And after working here, I may never have any. Kids are crazy.”
“Ha. Oh, well, don’t judge just from how they are here. This place is the seventh circle of hell, for some unknown reason, and my normally decently behaved children lose their minds in here. I don’t know what it is, but it’s just in here.”
“Oh, so I shouldn’t judge kids based on the kids that come in here?”
“Nope.”
“Good to know.”
{ 2 comments }
