Soft Shoes

My children wear different shoes in their classroom than they do when they’re outside.   It’s a Montessori thing.   (Montessori schools have lots of “things” like this that are quaintly specific to their educational model.)   In the mornings, children arrive to school, put their bag, jacket and other belongings in their cubby and change from their outside shoes into their “soft shoes” or  “slippers” as they’re also called.

When it’s time to go outside to play later in the day, they change back into their outside shoes, returning their soft shoes to their cubby.  I bought my children some new shoes (Tom’s brand) for the start of the school year—which I swear seems like three months ago—and didn’t think much of them aside from when we saw our children in school pictures and realized they spent hours each day in these shoes we never saw.

At the end of the school year, the shoes come home and I was wondering what to do about them.   We had about a week left in the school year and I asked my children if they wanted new soft shoes for their summer camps or if they liked their current ones.   My son explained his were too tight.   I asked him about them more, but he didn’t want to elaborate, which in no way surprised me.

The last day of school came and went and my son’s bag came home empty.  It came home with nothing in it.  There were not extra clothes from his cubby.  His sound book was conspicuously missing.  There was no completed painting work and his shoes, which I knew he wore each day, were absent.

I emailed his teachers and when she found them, she sent me a picture, saying she wasn’t sure if I still wanted them, but if so, here’s what they looked like:

That worn area in the front is where his toe was coming out.   Fortunately, we’d gotten new shoes the day before.  I’m glad I got them one full size larger than their current measurements. 

The Big Boy Update:  I asked my children to put up the kkckboards before we left the pool today.   I noticed my daughter had forgotten to wear shoes over to the pool so I told my son he could put both up instead.  He was upset and balked about putting both up.   He didn’t want to be helpful.  He didn’t want to do something nice for his sister.  In fact, he said his other arm was very tired and it wasn’t going to be able to carry the second kick board over to the bin.   I explained a few things to him [redacted] and then he decided he figured out how to turn his arm back on again so he could take the second kick board to be put up.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We put regular infusions of sun screen on my daughter, but she still gets sun.   The sunscreen “life” could be better expressed as “half-life” as over time, sun does begin to get in between the chinks.  She was a little red when she got home and was going through the unexpected cold you get when your dermis is overly hot.    She and I ate outside on the porch in the hot weather and she was fine though.   Tomorrow morning, the little bit of red will be gone.   It’s not much, but it happens.   You can’t spray them wet while they’re in the pool and you can’t get them out of the pool at this age without special act of congress being passed in triplicate.

Fitness Update:  Six miles early morning and then a half-hour on the elliptical this afternoon before I joined the children at the pool.   The pool is hot, but it does help you cool off after a workout.