Image credit: Photo by malik ml williams on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

We faced a major crisis recently: I couldn't find one of my son's shoes. And his shoe was not just missing, but missing at the worst possible time: moments before the bus was due to arrive. Now, it's not that Austen doesn't own other shoes; he does. But they are not his "going to school" shoes; those other shoes are his "playing somewhere in the immediate vicinity of our home" shoes and his "dressing up" shoes.

"Uh oh, I can't find one of your shoes, buddy. Do you know where it is?" Now this is a bit of a silly question, as Austen always takes his shoes off in the same spot by the door every day and then those shoes don't leave the house until the next day. Yet in spite of that, there was only one shoe there.

"I don't know," he answered, and then followed up anxiously with, "Which shoe is it? Which one? Left or right?"

"Um..." I quickly glanced at the shoe that hadn't gone rogue, "Right. The right shoe is missing."

"Oh." He seemed relieved to know.

"The bus is going to be here any minute. If I can't find the shoe, you're going to have to wear one of your other pairs."

His face immediately fell, his lip quivering. He jumped up and down in place, then started pacing. "No, no, no, no, no." He was trying hard not to cry, "No. I have an idea, Mama. You could tell the bus driver that we can't find my shoe, and then I can stay here until we find the shoe."

He was working so hard to come up with a solution, but if the shoe wasn't where it was supposed to be, who knows where it was? My mind started racing. Maybe I accidentally threw it in the trash in some kind of spaced-out, sleep-deprived stupor? Maybe Austen's sister (who has been watching Wall-E on DVD practically non-stop) took it somewhere, filled it with dirt and planted a seedling in it. Maybe space aliens took it! Maybe it was stolen by the mom of another autistic child who refuses to go to school until his missing right shoe is replaced with an identical shoe.

If I had to find the shoe first, Austen could miss most of the school day, especially if I had to track down space aliens. And that would mean no uninterrupted, kid-free time for me to do those lazy, luxurious things we stay-at-home moms do without the kids around: laundry and dishes. This wasn't just looking serious, it was looking grim.

Then I heard the bus pull up. (Shit!) So, I did what any good mother would do. I knelt down so that I was at eye level with Austen and said, "Buddy, you're going to have to wear your play shoes. I know you can be really brave..."

With tears in his eyes and panic in his voice, Austen started backing away from me saying, "No, no, no..."

But I cut him of swiftly and hit him with the coup de gras as I blurted out, "And if you are super brave and wear different shoes, I'll buy you a brand new Wii game after school!" (Nice.)

"Family Game Night?" he asked, clearly weighing the game against the horror of the wrong shoes.

"Whatever you want." (Please let the bribe work, please let the bribe work, please let the bribe work...)

"Ok," he said, shakily. (Yes! I can't believe I'm going to spend money on a Wii version of Battleship and Connect Four, but still yes!)

So, Austen put on the shoes and walked on his toes out to the bus, apparently wanting only the smallest possible portion of his feet to touch the ground in these offensive shoes. Then he paused a moment before slowly extending a tentative toe toward the steps. The moment he was safely in his seat, I let out a sigh and felt my shoulders drop. Then I rushed back inside, where I spent the next two hours look for that right shoe. I eventually found it wedged under a corner of the sofa.

When Austen got home from school, I asked him how his day went in the wrong shoes. "Ok," he said, "But everyone was staring at me all day because I was in different shoes." And in a class full of children who take notice of a multitude of tiny details that most of the rest of the world ignores, they probably were.