Last night at the orphanage I sat on the bed while Gabriel, four, was putting on his pajamas. I grabbed his bare foot and tickled it, he laughed and pulled it away.
I tried helping him put on his socks, but he pulled his foot away and said "I can do it!" and he slowly and sloppily put both of his socks on ... four year old style.
Then he handed me his shoe. Now that was a challenge he couldn't muster. And I found out why. His shoelaces were all knotted up, and it took a while for me to un-knot the shoe laces.
He watched me rather impatiently.
Then it was time to get his foot and sloppy sock into this small shoe. Force balanced with patience. Indeed this was a double challenge. His foot just didn't want to go into the very small shoe, I stretched the shoe and widened it, pulled the tongue up and finally forced his foot into it. The second shoe seemed to go on a bit easier ... then I re-tied both shoe laces. He stood up, looked at me, smiled and he was off ... doing things a four-year old boy in P.J's does!
