text: I wanted to love these shoes - they seem so sturdy and well made, but since my son can't even get his foot into the shoe, it does not serve much purpose.  I bought a whole size larger than his current shoe size, and he still could not squeeze his foot into the shoe.  And no, he does not have wide feet.  The problem seems to be the bungie that squeezes the shoe.  No matter what I did, I could not widen the opening to slip his foot in.  Perhaps I don't know how to use these shoes (who knew that a shoe could have a learning curve) but I struggled for 20 minutes to loosen the ties and just couldn't do it.  They are going back and I canceled my order for a matching pair for my daughter.  Bummer.  I really hoped that these would work for him.  From a quality perspective, they looked great.