Ethan happily picked up his shoe and sat down to try to put it on himself. Even with a 50% chance of picking the right shoe, Ethan always managed to pick the wrong shoe to try to put on. This isn’t that big of a deal with toddlers. There feet are more of a rectangle than the shape of a foot and they really don’t seem to mind if they have wrong shoe on. The only reason they probably end up with the right shoe on is so that parents don’t feel embarrassed that their child isn’t dressed properly.
I sat down on the floor, and pulled Ethan into my lap to help him put on his shoe. Ethan loves to try to put on his shoes and his boots, but he’s not quite there yet and I wanted to get out of the house. As I got the shoe on I asked my other son, “Ollie, can you find your shoes?”
Ollie didn’t respond. I looked over and saw him walking in a small circle. “Ollie, where are you shoes?” Again, Ollie didn’t respond. I went to the back door to see if he had left them there, but they weren’t there. “Ollie, help me look for your shoes.” At this point Ollie started helping me, first looking in cabinet for his shoes as I looked in the closet.
I couldn’t find them. I figured since it had rained recently, he could where his rain boots. “Okay, Ollie let’s just do your rain boots.” The only problem is, we couldn’t find his rain boots. All I could find was snow boots. Spring had indeed come, and it seemed ridiculous that Ollie would wear his snow boots but it was better than nothing I figured.
“I left them outside,” Ollie whispered. “What?” I had a sudden flash of a memory of Ollie helping Diana with the garden without any shoes on. “Ollie did you leave your shoes outside?” I asked him, “yes, by the bush.”
Okay, we can do this. I told Ollie to get his boots on so we could find his shoes, and as I look over to Ethan, I realized that the one shoe that I had put on him had disappeared. I spent the next five minutes trying to find Ethan’s shoe, and eventually found it crammed into his little snack cup which had the remains of some Cheerios that were his morning snack.
I carried Ethan on my hip, with him wearing one shoe, followed by Ollie wearing his snow boots into our backyard. I asked Ollie to give me some sense of where he left his shoe and eventually he directed me to look behind a bush. After ten minutes of looking I gave up. Snow boots would have to do for this trip to Target, but he needed shoes for school the next day.
As I headed toward the car, I realized that Ethan still only had one shoe on. So, we went back inside and I eventually found the other shoe in the pantry.
Fifteen minutes later I was in the shoe aisle of Target. Ethan was happily pulling boxes off of racks and I tried to convince Ollie to buy the cheapest shoes they had: light-up Marvel Superhero shoes.
I don’t even know how long it took to get out of the house, but I do know it was an ordeal..for want of shoes.
That was two weeks ago. Yesterday as I was organizing the shoes in the closet, I found the shoes Ollie said he left outside.
They were inside the closet all this time.
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