How to Break Old Habits and Learn New Tricks

We visited the progeny this weekend, which was very fun. Tobiah is turning four this week, so this fishing pole was a birthday present. It had a little plastic fish to practice with. Otherwise, their swimming pool isn’t stocked with many fish.

I also brought these fun, sparkly flip-flops for Aerro. She loved putting them on. Then taking them off. Then putting them on. Then taking them off. Then dipping them in the pool. And endlessly fascinating discovery.

Recently I learned I tie my shoes wrong.

While I’m thrilled to discover a better way to tie my shoes – Runner’s World has a video that teaches the better knot – I confess I still feel a little bad about the shoe-tying thing to begin with. See, when I was in first grade, they pulled me out of class for special tutoring in tying my shoes. Also in telling time on an analog clock. I suspect now that I was slightly dyslexic – though no one ever tutored me in running toward the correct goal. At any rate, I was young for my grade, but otherwise fairly intelligent.

The shoe-tying thing was embarrassing.

But this reef knot concept? So super cool! And it totally works better. So, I’m kind of amused to be learning, at 45, how to tie my shoes all over again.

That’s the thing, isn’t it? There’s always a new thing to learn, even in the mundane. The stuff we’ve been doing our whole lives. I don’t know how many times Aerro took off her shoes and brought them to me to put on her again. What had become a mundane thing to me, that I did out of force of habit, fascinated her.

This morning, back at home, we headed to the gym. As I was running on the treadmill, I realized I’d tied my shoes wrong. I’d gone back to my old method, out of habit, and the laces were loosening. I had to stop and retie them, concentrating on the new method.

Probably I should just do this over and over. And maybe dip them in the pool, too.

More fun is always better.