fit to be tied

we're nearing the end of the first quarter of school and liam came home with a checklist of skills that all first graders are supposed to have in order to be a Lacy Lion.  (lacy is the name of our school.  the lion is its mascot.  but i suppose you already figured that out.)  

 so we sat down and checked them off.  yes, he knows his full address.  yes, he knows his phone number.  of course, he can write his colors and his first and last name and his birth date.  he was feeling pretty great, checking off each item as he worked around the sheet counter-clockwise.   and then he got to the last one.

i can tie my shoes.

as i knew they would, the waterworks began.  "i'm the only one in my whole class who can't tie my shoes!" he wailed.  "i'll never be a lacy lion!  i'm going to go to college and not know how to tie my shoes!  i'm the horriblest shoe tie-er ever!"

(our son has a flair for the dramatic.)

but he's partially  right.  he very likely is the last person in his class to learn how to tie his shoes.  we've tried -- believe me, we've tried -- but he's not even close.  he's always struggled with fine motor skills (the poor boy only mastered using scissors in kindergarten) and chris and i decided we just weren't going to push it.  each lesson with him ended in frustration, both on his part and ours, and we just chalked it up to something his body wasn't quite ready for and resolved to give it another shot in a month or two.  in the meantime, our theory was this: there's always velcro.

but then this list came home, and we had no choice but to return to the challenge.  since then, we've spent untold hours on the concept and i swear he's no better than he was when we began.  we even borrowed this nifty book from a friend that has different colored laces, so he can more easily see what he's supposed to do (i.e., the red lace loops around the blue lace, etc).  the book teaches the two most-common methods and goes through each step with words and pictures.  we model it.  we encourage him.  we celebrate the few successes he's had.  but he's just not getting it.

to add some levity to this post of frustration, i actually found myself giggling the other night amidst one of our shoe tying sessions.  the bunny ear method (which happens to be chris's favorite) just wasn't working, so i showed him mine, which the book calls the rocketship method.  as i went through the steps, i noticed that the lace formed an S.  eager to find something that might serve as a visual reminder for him, i said, "an S for sara!"

"or an S for susanna!" susanna chimed in, as she was sitting next to us.  (side note: susanna proudly came downstairs this morning with the shoe on the book tied.  she has apparently taught herself.)  (side note #2: we are NOT mentioning this to liam.)

super also was with us, as she always is.  "or an S for super!" we exclaimed.

"or an S for shoe!" susanna added.

liam was bent over his laces at this point and glanced up at us with a look of disgust.  "i know what that S is really for," he muttered.  "Satan."