Two steps outside my place in the world
My son, 9, made everyone late for school this morning. He couldn't find his shoes. I organized a search party, sending 16 to scour the laundry and the dog house, 9 to check under every piece of furniture and inside the tree house, 7 to peek in the folds of the hammock, and I rolled through the garden, the garage, and the cat litter box. Nothing.
9's the anal-retentive member of the family. He worries about homework and ghosts and lunch and his little brother and the weather and the guinea pigs and the cat and, and, and everything in his known universe. He never misplaces anything. His section of the boys' bedroom sparkles, dust free, and all of his toys, treasures and books lay neatly in categorized rows, a suburban museum. All I can figure is that wild boy 7 gave the shoes to the gypsies.
I pulled out his smelly old sneakers from the shoe box in the garden shed. They shined, slimy with mildew, and I wiped them with an old denim rag. The sole flopped away from the heel and I hovered for a moment, trying to remember the location of the rubber cement.
9 tried to pull them on, but they no longer fit. He'd grown a good three inches taller in the past six months, and it looked like his feet grew four. I gave him an old pair of 16's running shoes and told him to stuff the toes with socks. His forehead wrinkled with concentration.
"Mom. I can't wear these. What if I fall down?" The 'th' in these sounded like a "d" due to the orthodontic expander in the roof of his mouth. His eyes, brown like the hard clay of our backyard, angled toward the ceiling.
"I could skip school today. I could help you. Can I help you do Avon instead?"
"No. We'll get new shoes after school. Let's go." I barked this in my Don't Mess With The Mother voice and the three boys ran for the van.
I'm organizing my Campaign 11 order, checking off boxes, adding Skin So Soft orders and contemplating which samples to purchase, but my mind keeps tripping to my sweet worried boy, clomping around school in those big shoes.
12:15:50 PM 
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