Shoe Laces

I had no intention of trying to teach Chips to tie his laces in a short time frame. It's simply not my style. Usually we take our time over issues like this. We don't fuss. We don't pressure. We just give ourselves plenty of time and we don't stress if it takes forever to reach a result. This is our way.

So when I bought the school trainers I knew that I was entering unfamiliar territory. They were lovely. Black with bright green trim and bright green laces. Oops....did I say laces.....yes I did. But Chips can't tie laces yet.....ahh that was the problem.

But it was getting late in the day and we had been walking around town for what seemed like forever and there was not many days left to sort the school uniform thingy out,the days of summer were zipping away quickly,so what was I to do? Go home without the trainers and then have to find my way to another shoe shop on a day that didn't exist or buy the trainers and teach Chips how to tie his shoe laces before school started.....

I bought the trainers and said a silent prayer.

We started to try and do the laces that very night. We only had five days to master this skill and we were working from scratch. I was tired after being out all day,Chips was tired from being out all day. Iam left handed and find it hard to teach a successful right handed way,my methods tend to be a jumbled up mix of everything so it was not surprising that we did not make much headway that night.

The next day was Saturday and as we ate our regular Saturday morning Morrisons scrummy breakfast we discussed the scenario with my mum and dad.

Chips excitedly told them how happy he was to have these new trainers and how he had to learn to tie laces in four days and I,with a pained expression on my face told them that yes this was true and what an earth was we going to do.

They understood completely.

When we got back from shopping my mum had a quick go at talking Chips through the rudimentals of lace tying. He listened and tried. But it was not clicking with him at all. We had mastered the knot bit but the loops....sigh....the loops were tricky.

We struggled on throughout the day,trying,getting stuck at the loops and then trying again.

Sunday dawned and my dad had a go at the teaching lark. Only three days were left now,the stakes were getting higher and a slight feel of panic was beginning to form in my tummy.

My dad was ultra patient and the progress was visible. Still a long way to go but Chips was beginning to get the hang of the loops and I could see an improvement from Friday.

We smiled because it became apparent that my dad had also taught me to tie laces. We still tie them pretty similar to each other. And my mum talked about how she gave my dad the job of teaching me to tie because he was much more patient at that kind of thing than she was. Looking at the time and effort he spent with Chips,I can see that he still is.

Well my dad tried and progress was being made but then Sharky took over.

And blow me down he taught Chips to do his laces!

He used the most new fangled method ever,which he utubed up but after much patient teaching,Chips finally learnt how to do his laces.

And I sat and watched them. Amazed at Chips new life skill and happy to see two brothers working together.

Special times and memories to keep.