Something I've never forgotten: when I was in kindergarten there were columns of "stars" on display to indicate the achievement of various milestones by the class members. In the "ties own shoelaces" column, it came to pass that I was the last vacancy. After some time, the teacher cornered me and asked, "You can tie your shoes, can't you?" "Yes," I admitted, and she had me demonstrate. I swear I remember doing it. She forthwith added my star. Not sure why I remember this incident so well. I think it's because I knew I didn't have a star, but I wasn't sure what to do about it. I think I assumed they had forgotten about me.
I still remember the moment I figured out if you pull one side of the loop it tightens the knot, if you pull the other side of the loop, it pulls the loose end out. It was a huge “aha” moment for me. Then there was the time I figured out the conversion factor 2.54 cm/in doesn’t work on square inches and cubic inches. that was a huge epiphany. I got addicted to math at that moment...and ended up studying engineering in college.
I couldn’t tie my shoes when I started kindergarten, but I learned pretty fast. All it took was a couple of instances of the teacher saying to the whole class, “Can someone come and tie Huntress’s shoes?”
I remember being told we had to learn to tie our shoes before we would be able to enter Kindergarden.
Spent the whole summer working on that task.