My soon-to-be 12 year old son decided one day that he wanted to go exclusively barefoot for 20 days. Going out to play with friends? barefoot. Heading to the pool a couple miles away? barefoot. Biking a few miles to take care of a vacationing neighbor’s house? barefoot. Climbing the maple tree? barefoot. Church? barefoot until we arrived to the building… then cover those dirty feet with clean socks and black shoes, buddy boy. I’m still the mom.
But here’s what was impressive: our average summer days easily hit 103 degrees in the summer. And 100 feet east of our house is an open field of dry grass, thorns, and the occasional rattlesnake. To get to this favorite neighborhood playspace, it involves running down the steaming hot street. Top it off with a 2 mile hike through rocks, weeds and the aforementioned snakes to get to the lake and you’ve got a challenge that beats swimming in the Artic waters in a Speedo.
He did it! We made sure to keep his feet emolliated with the hard lotion bar. He applied it daily and by the end of his challenge, his feet were soft. I created a special hard lotion bar loaded with anti-fungal essential oils (which, he claims were unnecessary since fungus is a problem with shoe-wearers, not naked feet… to which I reminded him we’d be at the pool a lot… by the way, you can find that recipe in my new e-book.)
Ready to be challenged (or endeared) by his videos? Check it out here: