I told Reilly last weekend we were going to teach him how to tie his shoes. We worked on it for a little bit then “something else came up”.

Shad and I went to his parents at Kindergarten on Monday night. On display was a project that Reilly was responsible for half of and Shad and I the other half. It was a shooting star – Reilly had to put his hopes and dreams in the star itself and Shad and I were to decorate the tail of the star and put our hopes and dreams for Reilly’s year in Kindergarten in the tail. We discussed ours with him:

• GROW
• LEARN
• HAVE FUN

It was decorated with a family photo and some ribbons and colored in.

As we looked at it on the wall I noticed his part of the star included “tie my shoes by myself”. When I read that, I thought to myself, this weekend, no matter what, he and I are going to work on that together.

<flash forward to tonight>

I was sitting on the couch talking to the kids and we were getting ready to head out in the car. My left shoe was untied, Reilly came up to me and said “can I tie your shoe for you?” I said “sure”. He did!!!!!! All by himself. I sat there in amazement. I told him I was so proud of him. I asked him who taught him his reply was “Mrs Pallance” (one of his teachers). He was clearly so proud of himself too, it made me want to cry. (for more than one reason)

I know my Nana Gervais taught me to tie my shoes. She taught me on a Sunday and I recall sitting in Church with her later that day untying and tying my shoes for the entire hour. I even put my foot on the pew to show the people around me how competent I was… although when she spotted my shoe up on the seat, she corrected that… QUICKLY and I was back down working away on the kneeler.

I’m pretty much thinking shame on me for not finding the time.