You know it's bad when....

Sam has about 9 pairs of shoes. Not counting flip-flops. Most of them have been given to us either as hand-me-downs or from my mom who found a good deal.  8 of these pairs are in excellent condition.  1 pair looks like this:

Yes, tops are completely detached from the bottoms in the front. Of course this is the pair he wants to wear all the time. (I figured out last week how he managed to destroy them so quickly when I saw him stopping himself on his bike by dragging his toes along the ground).

This weekend we went camping, and our trip ended up landing on a very wet and cold weekend. It had been hot when we were packing so we had limited warm clothing. Elena accidentally packed capri jeans instead of full length so she had to wear a pair of my socks up to her knees all weekend to keep her calves warm. Did I mention they were bright blue socks with polka dots? Sam didn’t care so much and continued to run around in shorts.

So when it came time to go to Mass Saturday evening, our warm clothes were looking pretty grubby and most of our church clothes were not going to keep us warm enough.  So we sat in the back and tried to remain inconspicuous. I did manage to get Sam dressed in a nice outfit, but I failed to tell Sam to put on his nice shoes for church and did not notice that he wore his hobo shoes.

At the end of Mass, an older lady approached Seth and shook his hand. When he looked down, she had put some money in his palm and said, “I hope you won’t be offended if I give you money so you can buy your son some new shoes.” 

Seth started laughing and said, “No, I wouldn’t be offended, but we really don’t need it. We’re camping this weekend – that’s why we look like this.”  He talked her into taking the money back, but talking Sam into wearing another pair of shoes has been another story.

I told my mom the story the next time I saw her, and she started laughing. Apparently, that’s the exact same reason she has been giving us so many shoes for Sam. I’m starting to think it might be easier to make him a shirt that says, “Thank you, but I don’t need more shoes” than it would be to get him to stop wearing them.