I bought my son this Little Tikes Climber at the community garage sales this past weekend. He hasn't had much of a chance to use it (in fact he only went down the slide once) because the weather has been so crazy lately. Since today was nice, I thought we would take the opportunity to go out and play on it.
I asked my son where his socks were (since he no longer had them on and I know I had put some on him this morning). He told me they were in the basement. So I asked him to go get them for me so we could put them on and then put his shoes on. He said, "I don't want to put them on. They make my feet sweaty." That gave me flashbacks of him as a baby and started me thinking about how little he has changed. His feet would always sweat as a baby when he had socks on, not matter the temperature. And once he figured out how to do it, he would always pull his socks off after I put them on him. He would then crawl around with them in his hands and later drop them somewhere. The house was littered with socks. And when I couldn't find a match to one of his socks, I raided the toy box, because it was normally buried in there.
Then he said, "I don't need socks. Just shoes. I'll wear my shoes with no socks." That made me cringe! I don't know why, but that just totally grosses me out. The feeling of tennis shoes on your foot with no sock, and the way your foot sweats in there...I just can't handle it. The only shoes meant to be worn without socks are sandals, and I guess some dress shoes (only because it doesn't look right, not because I don't want to wear socks with them).
I am trying really hard not to purposely mess my kids up. I am trying not to pass on my personal hang-ups about things or my fears of things. For instance. I have a fear of heights. How ever irrational it may be, I cannot control it. I think often of the trip Anthony and I will be taking to Niagara falls and of the fact that we paid extra to get a premium view which means our room will be somewhere between the 34th and 50th floor. I try not to think about it because I get very nervous, and start to sweat, and want to throw up, and want to say "Forget the trip, let's stay home."! But I have made and effort not to let my fear show to my kids. If they develop a fear of heights later on, so be it. But I don't want it to be because of me, and I don't want to hold them back from doing things they want to.
So anyway, I just matter-of-factly said, "we wear socks with tennis shoes, it's just something we do." Inside I was thinking, "That's totally gross dude!". He insisted on no socks however. So as we made our way over to the closet I began to reluctantly pull out his tennis shoes. And then I saw them. The brand new Crocs I bought him that he had been wanting to wear. It was genius. I guess I should now add that to my list of acceptable sock free shoes. He was excited to wear his new shoes and I didn't have to be grossed out. A win-win situation. The Crocs saved the day! (Perhaps that was a bit over-dramatic!)
Sincerely,
The woman who actually has a list of acceptable sock free shoes.
No comments:
Post a Comment