Shoes, Shoes & Shoes!

So...you see this irresistably charming troublemaker right here???

Up to no good, I tell ya.

(Also—he’s clowning around in a parked car. Simmer down, concerned peeps.)

Anywho.

Heeeere’s my guy a week ago—wearing a pair of yellow shoes for Chicklet’s school drop-off that were about two sizes to small. Boo. Hoo. #MomFail

Turns out (after a full inspection of his shoe bin at home), the booger had outgrown every pair, even his beloved rain boots—with the exception of one new pair of tennis shoes we’d recently purchased (Kohl’s cash for the win).

So...I took my boy for a morning of one-on-one shopping, and: 1) he was adorably excited about it, and 2) it was an adorably exciting process, ha.

Turns out, he now has strong footwear opinions.

And it also turns out that shopping with a toddler is a whole lot more lively when there are tiny but mighty opinions involved, ha.

It was a hilarious type of negotiation between mother and son. Largely driven by size availability (lots o’ his top picks were unavailable in his size), and a battle of wills, hehe.

And bless the lovely and patient sales lady, who was probably very grateful we were bombarding her with request after request at a time when there were no other customers. Whew.



In the end, my boy and I negotiated a settlement between his wild color preferences and my tendency toward sturdy neutrals.

I think the terms swayed in his favor. ;)

But he was insanely excited about his selection—and just the fun process, in general. Because he got to have opinions and sway with decisions, hehe.

And we had a lot of luck with a good pair of Ugg ankle boots, as well (that look ginormous, btw).

And as if that wasn’t enough fun for one round of shopping, we headed across the street to the outlet mall and got some insane deals on two more pairs—one for only $11. Woohoo!

Needless to say, his shoe bin is now properly stocked with appropriately-sized footwear. :) And—bonus!—yesterday we found a pair of firefighter-themed (his selection) rain boots at Tarjay. And that’s awesomesauce, because we use our rain boots all the time, all the time. 

So...yay for sizing up on shoes.

Oh—and whilst we’re on the subject of shoes. Can I just show you the kind of mud situation I was working with last week after Chicklet’s dance class? 

I mean...seriously.

She and her little friend had wandered a little far in the tree-covered area they love to play in after class. And the resulting mud was both epic and disastrous.

I’ve never just wanted to throw in the towel on a pair of shoes more than in that moment (and, of course, Little Man’s looked just as bad, I just didn’t catch a pic of them).

Luckily, I was super-duber lazy and decided to just leave them in the garage until I had the willpower to attack them.

And by then, the mud had dried enough for me to just pry a knife in there and force off a whole giant, mud-cocoon straight into the trash. Then into the sink for a scrub-a-dub, and, voila! The butterflies re-emerged from their cocoon.



I may or may not have left Little Man’s shoes in the garage (thank goodness they were one of his old, ill-fitting pairs, but I still want to clean and donate them) to tackle another day.

You know—when I have nothing better to do. 

Happy Thursday, peeps!