This morning when Jack was tying his shoes, it looked like he was doing some sort of macramé project. He was folding laces over each other and pulling and tucking. It didn’t look like the kind of shoe tying I remember teaching him, and it took forever.

“Jack, are you ready buddy? We talked about this. We’re going to be late,” Mike said.

Outside it was snowing, which might mean slippery roads and a slower drive than normal. At the rate it was taking Jack to tie his sneakers, he would miss his carpool, and Mike would be faced with an unscheduled hour-long commute.