To Tie or Not to Tie...The Morning Melodrama

The kids want "tie" shoes...OK, fine "tie" shoes it is.  They know how to tie their shoes, so it's all good right? Yet the realty of the before-school-morning-madness reveals it is far from "all good." The boy child has developed his own shoe knotting system.  He has taken his "tie" shoes and tied an elaborate system of knots so that the shoe needs never to be tied again....I don't know why, I know I shouldn't care, but this drives me batty.  Mean while the girl child, who is actually very good at tying shoes, chooses to spend her last few moments at home in the morning sitting on the floor screaming and kicking her feet, and not tying her shoes. 

On a recent shoe shopping trip, as I am wishing that more shoes came with elastic instead of shoelaces, it occurs to me that this was a problem I can fix! I bought the "tie" shoes, brought them home, removed the shoelaces, and replaced them with 1/4" white elastic.  On the boy child's new shoes I tacked the elastic together with the sewing machine, and then shifted the elastic slightly to hide the tack.  He's happy to have the look of the "tie" shoes, I'm happy not to have to look at the knotted shoe.  

I took the girl child's most troublesome pair of "tie" shoes and tried to do the same, but with this particular pair the shoes were still very difficult to get on, so I came up with plan "B".  I laced the shoe, but instead of tacking the elastic together I simply knotted the ends of the elastic.  She loves the look and this morning when it was time to put shoes on....not a scream or kick one, only jumping for joy...both of us jumping for joy.  

Had I known that something as simple as 1/4" elastic could have us leaving home in the mornings on a good note I would have done it ages ago!