Determined

I was going to entitle this post "Stubborn," but "Determined" puts a positive spin on the whole situation!

Yesterday morning, I was trying to get everyone ready so that we could take Emily to school. I asked Christian to go and get some boots on since he could put them on by himself and, since we were only going to be in the car 5 min, it shouldn't have mattered what he had on his feet.

Christian had other ideas though. His new favorite shoes are his "fire shoes" that he got for Christmas from his Auntie Erin. (They're black converse w/flames on the side.) The also have laces and require help from Mommy to get them on. I tried to explain to him that since we were only going to be dropping Emily off and them coming home, he needed to listen to Mommy and just put on his boots. Thus commenced the tantrum.

I finally helped him to get his shoes on, but left the laces untied. Well, he screamed the entire 5 minutes that we were in the car that he needed his shoes TIED!!!! I finally told him that if he wasn't going to listen to me about putting boots on, then he'd have to learn to tie his own shoes b/c I wasn't going to do it for him this time! When Emily got out of the car, I heard her say, "I'll teach you to tie your shoes on Saturday, Christian, okay?" So sweet. I wish it would've worked!

He was still fuming when we got home and decided to stand in the garage rather than come into the house when I brought Kari in. I thought to myself, "Fine. He'll come in soon b/c it is FREEZING out here!" (He did have his coat on so this wasn't unreasonable.) So, I got Kari started on breakfast. After about five minutes, he still hadn't come in so I went down and opened up the door to the garage. My sweet little boy had turned on the garage light and opened up the car door. I found him sitting inside the car, trying to tie his shoes w/tears coming down his cheeks. He looked up at me and said, "Me sorry, Mommy."

Instantly, I scooped him up, gave him a big hug and kiss, and brought him inside. I told him that I didn't realize how important wearing those shoes had been and that I was sorry for not listening better. I told him he could defintitely wear his Fire Shoes later that afternoon when we went to the library. I got another big hug. Melt my heart!

It was only later that I looked at his shoes. This is how he'd tied his shoes:

"Determined" is definitely the right word.