6/24/09 New shoes

Julian's last day of preschool was today! Here's he is with his teacher, Miss Amanda, who's been great. He talks about things she's taught him all the time, games and crafts and especially science. He's really thrived with her. He doesn't have much good to say about how she disciplines him. To me, that caps it. I'm all for a teacher who kids know won't put up with any nonsense from them.

(I do have to break Julian of insisting that "main course" is pronounced "main coss," a side-effect of Miss Amanda's accent!)

It was a last-minute impulse, but after picking up all three (the LAST DAY I pick up all three from different daycares!!), I decided the boys' shoes were a disgrace again, and it was time for new ones. Actually it was time for new ones weeks ago, so by historical measures, I'm right on time.

So I "swung by" the most hideous of places: a nearby mall. The Howard's Shoes is run by a really nice guy with great service, and my experiments with other sources of shoes hasn't yielded anything that they can't pulverize in a few months anyway.

We weren't there minutes before Katrina complained "pee is bothering me!" The super-nice staff at the shoe store pointed me to the powder room, and kindly offered to mind the boys while I rushed Katrina down a long hall with great apprehension -- like she's going to go here? I used my last resort, an offer of a reward: she saw some duck she wanted, and even though I had no idea what the duck was, I offered her the duck of an unknown form if she'd go in the potty.

Of course not. "NOOOOOO!!!!!"

After several attempts, I knew it was futile and said "OK!" As we walked away from the bathroom I said, "I guess no duck today!" But, nothing doing, she wasn't going for it.

Meantime, the kind people at the store had measured the boys' feet, found several sneaker candidates, and had tried them on them. Gabriel was tearing around the mall with what now had to be his new sneakers, ones I hadn't even seen yet. The only input I had was a 4-second comment that the ones on Julian's feet looked sort of pink, when I noticed Katrina doing the pee dance. "Katrina..." I glanced over at the boys again, since I was there to buy them shoes after all, not wait hand-and-foot on their stubborn sister, then back at Katrina....

Too late. She was now looking down at a lovely new puddle under her. "That's OK," the kind store owner said as he reached for his oft-used carpet-cleaning kit, "it happens all the time."

ARRGHHH!

This was no accident. She told me she had to go (sort of, she just said it aloud really), I got her to the bathroom in time, but the final hurdle wasn't jumped. We're held hostage to Katrina's complete, total refusal to even try sitting on a toilet away from home. The episode doesn't rattle her at all though, other than demanding I change her clothes. There's no way this will do anything toward getting her to sit on a real toilet next time. This HAS to stop!

She still refuses to try to pedal a tricycle normally too, though she will sort of push on a pedal with one foot.


I think I owe Howard's a lot of business in the next few years.

6/24/09