Yesterday and today, J-man wore what we call “big boy shoes.” That means shoes with a sole that is NOT simply a piece of leather. Yes, shoes with rubber soles. Shoes that are made for running around outside. Shoes like big boys wear!
The first time, the OT put them on him. I understand it involved essentially sitting with him on the floor, and holding one of his legs down with her leg, while shoving the other foot into a shoe. (I’m imagining some sort of professional wrestling pretzel-type move.) I understand it wasn’t a pleasant experience, and I expected that to be the case when we tried it later. However, the Wonder Pets (best show ever) was on, and it was pretty darn simple. Today, on the other hand, the first time I tried it I ended up throwing one of the shoes across the rug in frustration! Then, something like 10 minutes later, I tried it again, and Voila! Easy peasy. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? (Only the Shadow knows…)
Also, the J-man slept for 13 straight hours last night. I think that has happened once before in his entire life, and I think he was recovering from an illness then. Since he hadn’t napped in forever, I guess last night was a catch-up night. I was totally for it.
Tomorrow we have Speech Therapy, and we have the appointment at the audiologist. The appointment is right when we normally put the J-man down for his nap. Good times. Good times.
Posts that hopefully are similar:
- Rain/shoes
- Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?
- Sensory Coping Techniques
- You Kinda Get Used to Weeks Like This
- When the Only Thing Routine is the Lack of Routine
- Interrupting the Loop
- Blast Off!
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Shoes are still a big issue for E, though he does wear them every day at preschool. Any other time, though, and he pries them off as soon as we get them on.
So far so good with shoes this week. Amazingly, the shoes he’s wearing are lace-ups. This to me is like getting a long-haired cat to wear an electric razor – or more accurately – getting said cat to shave with said razor.
There’s nothing that special about these shoes. They are a size 8 Medium hand-me-down tennis shoe. As a matter of fact, they are a bit too small for him. His wide feet need something roomier in both directions.
We ordered some Preschoolians for him to try out and are hopeful in their cool engineering that they will be the ultimate solution for this. There are a few other online places we could try. Locally, Stride Rite is about the only place that sells kids shoes in widths, but egad they’re expensive!
More than likely, we’re going to eventually find the one that meets our fundamentals:
* Fits in length
* Fits in width
* We can get them on him quickly (velcro straps, baby!)
* He doesn’t scream like he’s being stabbed
* He can’t take them off without our help
Once we do, we’ll probably buy them by the handful so we don’t have to go through this process for a while.
But he’s still wearing his ‘big boy shoes’ with little complaint, and we are thrilled! He even moved up to ‘big boy pull-ups’ this week! (really because he outgrew the biggest Huggies Overnites they sell) He’s all gettin’ growed up!!
He has seemed so adult today. Chilled out, exploring around in his ‘new’ shoes, making great eye contact with everybody, ‘talking’ more (even if we have no clue what he’s saying), and he even pointed at a couple of letters after we asked him to in some flash cards (A and B in case you’re wondering).
It being almost 100 degrees here today was for crap, but he (and we) had an awesome day!
Thanks for the Preschoolians tip, hadn’t heard about those. I love that they advertise being difficult for the child to remove!
The problem ended up being that we bought the wrong size. Their printable, online sizing chart bit. It didn’t help that it was in European sizing (sorry, my math brain died off in college 15 years ago) and the translation to US sizing was off. Oh, well. Live and learn.
Thankfully, Preschoolians has a liberal exchange policy. They say free shipping both ways if you want to swap shoes (obviously unworn-looking). We’re still waiting on the replacements. Hopefully any day now. The shoes we got were really cool, even if too big. More details later in a product review.
He’s still wearing the hand-me-downs OK, but they are perilously small on his feet already. I may have to stalk the UPS guy.