Measuring Up – Sun 30th Aug 2015
By Jeannette | August 30, 2015
One of the “joys” of preparing to send T and D back to school is shoes. Do they still fit? Will new ones be needed and (more importantly) will either of them be able to cope with a busy, noisy Clarks store full of parents and their children trying to get sorted too, maybe getting impatient at the length of time they’ve been waiting.
Every time D and I have ventured into town, we’ve gone into Clarks, seen the amount of people waiting via their ticket system and thought against it. Yes, I know they operate an appointment system but she wouldn’t have wanted to be in that sensory-overloaded environment, appointment or not. And she’d tell me she didn’t want to be there and I’d just know that it would be extremely difficult to get those important measurements.
So, we waited until this afternoon and headed to our local Clarks, thankfully after the busy monthly car boot sale was winding down, so there were nowhere near as many people around.
D wears trainers to school as uniform isn’t compulsory in her SN school, thank goodness and she did extremely well with the measuring on their electronic devices. I hadn’t said to the assistant about her autism but he seemed to gather from the gentle way we talked to her and the fact she needed instructions repeated several times, that she was SN.
And yep, she’s gone up another half size and this is where the fun starts….. D has been in grown-up shoes size for ages, despite only being 11 and a bit, she’s now nearly as tall as me and catching up in every other aspect.
It’s now at the stage where she’s at the end scale of bright, funky trainers and finding some with Velcro is even more of a challenge.
So, we’ve ordered in a Velcro purple pair (not my influence, that was the only colour) and a lovely irridescent silver pair, which are lace ups.
She can’t do laces but I know, just know, that she prefers these, because of the colour. Having looked online, this does seem to be a common issue, ie that children and young adults with motor delays/issues have problems with laces.
What does anyone reading this do? Is there something that keeps the laces intact?
The last thing I would want is for her to not notice they’re loose and fall over in the playground. Yes, there will no doubt be TAs around to help, but there is that issue of D having the confidence to seek assistance, that’s been an ongoing one all through school, no matter how comfortable she may seem (it brews up inside).
Maybe the answer is to get both, but if there is an overriding preference for one pair, the other will be overlooked, won’t it.
Would welcome any laces experiences anyone reading this has. T only learnt a couple of years ago and stubbornly refuses to accept advice that his laces may be trailing, but his sister (D) will need something else, whether it be some sort of cover over the knot – is there one? – I’ve got no idea.
Still, I guess it’s another back-to-school thing off the list anyway, despite the potential complications.
Despite my love of all things purple, I prefer the silver ones too, shame they’re not in my size!
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