Barefoot at home
This is not your typical article to read probably, but I figured maybe someone else has struggled with the same issue and has the perfect tip to solve this, so let's write about it. I've had many great tips here from likeminded people and often coming from a totally unexpected angle I hadn't explored yet.
Both of us (my boyfriend and myself) walk barefoot inside the house. I have to admit, he was the influence in my life for taking that habit upon myself as well because before I was probably mostly walking on socks/slippers inside the house. Until he showed me the importance of grounding. I got used to having bare feet and when I still smoked and had a cigarette in front of our door, I didn't even bother putting on shoes anymore. Unless it was freezing cold, obviously!
If he could, he would never wear shoes
I'm talking about my boyfriend, he just hates shoes even more than I do, and if he could, he'd go through life barefoot. Would not recommend it in our district though, ugh, the thought alone what your feet will come into contact with, not funny. Nope, not an option here, in nature, another story!
The little lady prefers socks or shoes
When she learned how to walk, she was often barefoot or had these socks on her feet that prevented her from slipping. She never wore shoes inside, we always take them off when arriving home. I just don't like the feeling of shoes on my feet to be honest and I'm always glad when I arrive home to take them off. She will keep them on usually if I don't remind her. Maybe that's because she doesn't have the issues on her feet yet that I have (painful toes and swollen feet from wearing shoes in summer).
Kindergarten routine
It probably doesn't help that at kindergarten, they need to wear inside shoes and outside shoes separately, which is now of course adding to her routine as she's going full days currently. I totally understand that wearing sandals or slippers can be a bit messy for the kindergarten teachers whenever the children are playing in sand with water, and having to go inside afterwards to go to bed. It's just not really convenient to clean all these little feet, is it?
Sandals for hot weather
I was surprised to see my daughter put on her winter boots even in spring when she was wearing shorts. I laughed at first, honey, this is not really a good combo, come on wear these sandals. I didn't find her sneakers yet, so I knew when this was happening a few times, she wanted closed shoes, and a pair of sneakers is light and easy for playing outside. Also good for less warm or rainy days. A few weeks ago, we found sneakers, and from that moment she didn't want to wear her sandals anymore.
35 degrees and still no sandals?
When the days arrived that she was wearing a cotton dress only as it was too hot to wear anything else, she still put on her socks (often a mismatch as well, but that's another story,lol) and I was like sweetheart, that's way too hot for today. She agreed to change to sandals, but with socks! Ouch, that just hurts my eyes! The school requests clean socks for those moments they get dirty outside, and therefore she always has them with her, I noticed that every single day when she was wearing sandals, she came home with socks in her sandals. I asked her if the teacher did it, but she said she did that herself every time.
She seems to hate her feet
A few times, she mentioned she doesn't like looking at her feet, they are ugly she said. I really had no clue she felt that way, and why she feels that way. I think a child should not be worried about the look of her feet, and be ashamed to wear sandals that show her feet. It kind of broke my heart for a second hearing that a few times. I decided I should try to make her like her feet and distract her mind a bit. But how?
Spa time!
Suddenly I realized that I could try to pamper her a bit giving her a feet bath with some bubbles, then filing her nails and polishing them. I want to show her how soft these little feet are and that she should not dislike them, especially not when they have cool nail polish on them! I wanted to keep it a surprise, but then my boyfriend accidentally mentioned it without realizing that it was a surprise, oops. But when I mentioned it at dinner yesterday, she started to glow when I talked about polishing her toe nails.
A foot bath always feels nice
This morning, we started the day with a Spa session, a tub with hot water and bubbles, to soak these little soft feet of her. Afterwards, it's time for a nice cream to keep the feet soft and then of course, time to file and polish the nails!
She loved sitting in the feet bath and said she wanted this more often, haha.
Time for a small foot massage in between the relaxing foot bath and nail polishing:
This was good for a lot of giggles and "stop it, that tickles!" moments.
And finally, time to cut and polish the nails. My file was lost today, so I used a clipper instead, her nails were already quite short, she has been plucking them (trying to teach her not to, but without luck). I first used some nail hardener to hopefully build stronger nails and a light pink polish.
She is very happy with the result, and I bet she will be happy going out on her sandals today!
Hoping she will like her little soft feet now
I'm hoping that this will change her mind about her feet, because I would hate for her to feel so bad about not wanting to show her feet in sandals because she hates them so much. If anyone has any other tips for me regarding the topic, please feel free to share them in a comment, I highly appreciate it!