Now that Doug has solved my helmet problem, ^* I'm hoping someone can solve my shoelace problem.

A couple of years ago the then-director of special ed (we're on our 3rd in 7 years) told me to forget about teaching Andrew to tie his shoes. Forget about it as in: forget about it for good. It's not going to happen, don't speak of it again.

Naturally this was my cue to decide Andrew would be learning to tie his shoes come hell or high water.


[pause]


Wow. Hell or high water. I've been saying hell-or-high-water most of my adult life, and until Hurricane Katrina it hadn't occurred to me what the first person to say come-hell-or-high-water was actually talking about.

He was talking about teaching his autistic kid to tie his shoes in the midst of torrential rains and major flooding.

Which reminds me: possibly the only good thing about ageing is that you get to find out the true meaning of sayings. Most sayings come from dogs, I find, except for the ones that come from square dancing. Wolf it down, dog your heels, dog days, dog eat dog, let sleeping dogs lie, and so on. Pretty much the whole lot. Dogs have had a big influence, being our co-evolutionists and all.

What comes from square dancing, you ask? Back to square one comes from square dancing.

Speaking of which, we were talking about:


tying shoes


Andrew is now actively interested in tying his shoes, and is making progress.

But I can't remember the easy way of tying shoes his aide showed me a couple of years ago. (She's not his aide anymore, or I'd ask her.) And I can't find it on the internet.

I may have now reconstructed it for myself (discovery knowledge! that's the ticket!) But if anyone knows how it's done, I'd appreciate hearing from you.








^*not to mention my number line problem, my fraction problem, and my distributive property problem