A Swing and a Shoe

My DH put in a tree swing the other day and I haven't seen the kids since. They are up and out the door to wait in line for their turn at 7 AM. They are getting along great and helping each other out all without violence. Why didn't we think of this earlier? You can barely tell Michael is crying on the side, no reason that we could tell.






This is Emma sitting on the table reading Patches' 5th grade reading passages to her over and over so she can answer her worksheet. Emma is the only one patient enough to do this. I usually do it the first 50 times and pass it on to her. Ruthie is pretending to do homework to be cool.





Now that I have had a day to recover, I will share our recent shoe shopping experience. Normally, I shop alone, bring in the shoes and they LOVE them, take them and they can't decide or only want the really expense ones. Since I was enjoying myself so much on my lunch date Friday, I lost track of time and had to take the kids with me when I returned home. My bad.

As soon as the elementary kids walked in the door, I loaded them up and headed to the mall leaving a note for Cyr to have a snack and lock the door. We went over the expectations in the van before we got out. I told them how long it would take, how they should behave, who is with who (they have to have a partner at all times), exactly what I will be buying, how much they have to spend on their shoes, consequences for any additional asking or poor behaviors, and where we would be going in the mall. I cover everything, every time. This time, they forgot the second we stepped into the store.

It was actually not too bad until they realized that the Girl's selection in Sears was so limited b/c I do not buy tennis shoes with lots of white or licensed characters on them. They are ruined within a week and grey, black, even pink does better than white and the other ones are usually too cheep to last. The girls didn't see anything they liked and that was when the trouble began. We had only hit one of 6 stores and it just kept going downhill. Lots of whining, jacking around, wandering, threatening, and begging. Not my finest moment as a parent. Of course, had we not run into several teachers I could have been a bit more stern. That is not entirely true, I just wouldn't have put up with as much crap as I did and they wouldn't have gotten new shoes. I wanted them to have new shoes, I feel good buying them nice new shoes.

Everyone got what we came for in the end. Ella was the only one without new shoes b/c she will get hers in a few weeks when her braces are redone. Cyr didn't want new ones, yet. I have three kids in a size 13, one in 1, two in a 6, and Ella really is an 11 but with her braces I suspect she will need a 2 or a 3. Much to their surprise, they all survived the trip and not wearing their new shoes home from the store. They became extremely quiet when they realized I had pulled into McDonald's and only ordered for Cyr and I. Things got back to normal after their bologna sandwiches with carrot sticks, it is our typical meal for kids who can't for whatever reason, join our family for dinner.