7 Quick Takes about Sea World, Flesh-Eating Bacteria, and Realizing You Don't Know How to Tie Your Shoes

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday!

—1—

Happy Halloween! The costumes are done, the candy is bought, and it's smooth sailing from here on out. 

During trick or treating, nothing is an emergency situation anymore. Everything loses its urgency. Your homemade bat wings that took me 3 hours to figure out are coming apart? Oh well, only a few more houses to go! Your Viking helmet is chafing your forehead and you can't see because the spray paint is melting down into your eyes? Oh well, we only have a few more houses to go!

Even if it's the worst day ever, Halloween ends with going home to eat chocolate. I just can't think of many bad things to say about that.

—2—

We're still sick over here. My voice came back, but I'm still waking up at 4am wondering why it sounds like Sea World over here with all these kids and their croupy seal-barking coughs.

However, the timing of our colds coincides with the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa in such a way that it takes the fun right out of complaining about it in public.

—3—

It was "Bring a Stuffed Animal Day" in my son's class at school. The problem is, we don't have a lot of stuffed animals. I purged them all a little while ago, but there are a few throughout our house. He chose to bring this one:

Plush flesh-eating bacteria, complete with a knife and fork? Check!

His teacher thought it was a jelly bean and asked him about it. He informed her that no, it was actually a "person-eating germ" and it ate people by "cutting their skin off with a knife and fork." In retrospect, I'm surprised that conversation didn't earn him a trip to the school psychologist for the afternoon.

—4—

Seriously, I am pretty surprised. His school is sensitive about things that may or may not have to do with violence. Last year he had a goofy dream that somehow involved his classmate Blake and a sword (I can't really tell you the details, I'm only capable of listening to my children describe their dreams for about 6 seconds before my eyes glaze over) and when I said, "You should tell Blake about it tomorrow" he told me, "I can't. We aren't allowed to say 'sword' at school."

—5—

We bit the bullet and went shoe shopping. It was every bit as annoying as I expected it to be, except more expensive and there was less in stock.

Apparently neon sneakers are in. Like three glow-in-the-dark intensity shades of neon encasing your entire foot and tied up with a neon shoelace. My daughter is not a neon person, and took forever trying to find the least bright pair. This is the best we could do.

At least we'll never lose this pair.

—6—

In other shoe-related angst, I've decided that few things in life can make you feel as dumb as trying to teach a 6-year-old to tie their own shoes. I try to keep up the pretense of being an intelligent adult, but there always comes a point when the child gets stuck and gives me a sideways look, and I buckle under the pressure.

You just can't maintain a surface level of coolness while yelling, "I don't know, okay? I don't know how to tie my shoes unless I'm watching myself do it! Just give me the other one and I'll tell you where the stupid bunny goes next."

—7—

It's too late for us (we've already committed to a method and both our heads will explode if we have to start over,) but I may try this method next time I teach a small human how to secure their footwear. I stumbled across it while Googling all my life problems.

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