Julia and I embarked on an important adventure today – we went to buy her first pair of real shoes. She has been wearing soft-soled shoes for quite awhile as that’s what is now mostly recommended by doctors to be best for kids feet while they are learning to walk (I’m sure this recommendation, like all others, will probably change by the time we have to buy shoes for our next child). But we’ve had a couple of warmer days and I’d like for her to be able to play outside so it was off to the shoe store – Stride Rite, of course.
I’ve actually been looking forward to this because as most people who know me know, I love shoes. This is an inherited trait from the Nadeau side of the family and while my shoe shopping has definitely been curtailed in the past couple of years due to budget constraints and just simply not having places to wear different shoes, it’s still one type of shopping I actually like to do. And, just in case anyone is wondering about my claim that this is an inherited trait I will offer this – my Dad has no less than 15 pairs of just sneakers. Who knew there were so many a person had to have?!? So not only is it inherited, it is also a gender-neutral trait!
Okay, back to Julia. We go into Stride Rite (after she has had a long nap and eaten lunch) and start looking at shoes. That goes fine; we’re having fun pulling shoes off the shelf and tasting them, seeing how tough they are by throwing them on the floor, etc. Then it comes time to measure her feet and there is NO WAY that she is putting a single toe on that measuring device. Not happening. There’s a calming down period, some watching of other kids getting their feet measured, and then attempt 2. Again, not happening. She climbed into my lap and clung to me like I was a tree and there was a wolf trying to eat her. I calm her down again and then basically end up forcing the child to stand as the clerk measures her feet with lightning speed and determines she needs a size four. Okay, great. We pick out the shoes, get them on and they seem to fit. Hopefully they do, because we each got a half a millisecond chance to push on the toes to see if there was some room! After that we were out of that store as fast as possible.
Bottom line is that I think our days of fun mother-daughter shoe shopping trips are a ways off. But she did prance around happily in them once we got home so I think she might have gotten the shoe gene too! :)
