Shopping for Shoes

Over the summer Megan and Riley managed to outgrow their shoes. Their crocs, which come in double sizes (like 10/11 and 4/5), have been their go to shoes for the last 9 months or so. They started out a little too big, but now they are obviously too small.

I decided to take them to the shoe store so I could measure their feet. What a nightmare.

Megan wanted every glittery, sparkly shoe she found, regardless of the size. And then she would get annoyed with me when I told her that she couldn't have that particular shoe of her dreams. "Why are you always saying that that shoe doesn't fit me. Look, it does fit," she would say as her heel stuck out the back. The part where I said, "You can have it, just find size 11.5 or 12." must have sounded like the adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons to her.

Meanwhile Riley was merrily pulling shoe box after shoe box off the shelf. "Look Mama. Look it what I got. A shoe!"

I feel like a caricature of myself at times like these. Or the punch line in a not particularly funny joke - frazzled mother takes kids to buy shoes! See her struggle not to explode! I don't even want to know what my blood pressure is like during our shopping expeditions.

And the worst part is that we didn't even get shoes. Actually that isn't quite true. The truth is worse. I somehow ended up buying Megan another pair of flip-flops (which she can't wear to school) and no shoes for Riley, who desperately needs them.

But I have their shoe sizes now (11.5 to 12 for Megan and 6.5 to 7 for Riley) so I can can start combing the Internet for choices instead of stores. I'm trying to convince Bryan that we should buy this so I never have to take the kids to a shoe store again. I have a birthday coming up, so it isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility,