Tying shoes

  Yesterday I taught Amaya how to tie her shoes! Although I've tied many shoes for kids throughout the years I've never actually taught anyone to tie them before, so I was pretty excited! I was surprised how easily Amaya picked it up, probably because she's older (seven years old). She was ready to do it and caught on quick. One of Amaya's homework assignments during her off-track time was to learn how to tie her shoes. Her teacher said that several kids in the class didn't know how to do it yet and asked if parenst could work on that during the time off. 

   We had been postponing that because she wasn't able to do it earlier this year because of her fixator. It was too hard for her to bend down far enough to reach her feet to tie her own shoes. Mostly because her left knee wouldn't bend enough to allow her to do it. She would loose her balance and fall over. It was easier to use velcro or slip on shoes during the lengthening. We figured that she had enough to worry about, take care of and focus on and that tying shoes could wait. We figured that when the time was right, we would get around to it. And now that it was assigned and she's able to bend a bit better we did it. 

    Earlier in the year (about halfway through the lengthening process) an aunt of mine asked Amaya why she didn't tie her own shoes. She, very rudely, told Amaya that "she was lazy" for using slip on and velcro shoes at her age. I was furious and speechless. Lazy?! Of all the things you could call Amaya, lazy is the last thing you could justifiably call her. She has worked so hard, day in and day out for months. Obviously my aunt didn't get that otherwise she wouldn't have made such an ignorant and rude comment. Months later my aunt's comment still upsets me, so thank you for letting me vent. Because I don't care that Amaya learned to tie her shoes later than other kids. I care that she learned to tie them when she was ready. And I'm proud of her because she worked so hard to be able to bend her knee enough to be able to tie her shoes. 

Here is the first pair she tied! I thought it would be easier if she tied a pair that wasn't on her foot first then try a pair that was on her foot. Oh, and did you notice her shoes don't have a lift on them? She hasn't worn a lift since March! 

Here she is tying her shoe on her right foot. 

Here she is tying her left shoe. It was tougher to get her shoe on and she wasn't able to bend her knee as much as the right foot. It made it a bit trickier to tie it, but she kept at it and didn't give up. She ended up tying her shoes several times to practice and get good at it.