10/19/11 Shoe blowout

Today is Dave's birthday and somehow I got no photos in all the hullaballoo of making a nice dinner, gifts, video-phone-calls (Facetime!!), and of course, CAKE.

In case anyone thinks I'm too soft a parent, Julian was not able to have birthday cake because of his visit to the principal's office on Monday -- no dessert for a week, and sorry, no pass for Dad's birthday. I've warned him that Halloween is coming up, this is no time to mess around. So what happens? He gets sent to The Office again today. That extends his dessert detention (and various others) for another week.

I did get a few photos yesterday though. Since Gabriel has been walking home from school, he's been (mostly) keeping up with his homework and has time to do other things when we all get home. Yesterday he wanted to -- wanted to! help with dinner.

So I talked him through making macaroni-n-cheese (he's getting much better at that, almost on his own), and then cutting up broccoli. Amusing, Julian is quite a bit better at this given his experience. But he did fine and was proud when I trusted him with a real knife (only because Julian was well out of reach).

Just before bed, for some reason I noticed Gabriel's shoes. Oh brother. Shredded again! I got caught unawares. I really do try to replace their shoes before they get to this point, but sometimes I just miss it, or it happens too quickly.

We had a great laugh throwing them away, then pulling out the next new pair.

Until this morning, when it was time to get in the car and we discovered that the brand-new pair I'd given him was too small. Fortunately I had another pair, a half-size larger, waiting, but if not, we'd have been in trouble.

Now I have no shoe buffer for Gabriel, so I have barely a few weeks to build up a stash of shoes again. Going to the shoe store every time they need shoes is unthinkable -- I'd be going to the mall every month for one or the other boy, and occasionally, the girl. Since I'm apparently so poor at pre-emption, I really need a closetful of new shoes ready and waiting. Thank you zappos! Please all, make sure I rob Zappos of 8 pairs of boys' shoes before November or I'm certain to get into trouble again!

10/19/11