Did You Know? (observed at Stride Rite)
It is very rare that T and I buy brand new shoes for either Tiny or Buba. We’re fortunate to get some hand-me-downs from relatives, neighbors, and fellow MOTs. I shop the local twin sales in the fall and spring and pick up as many gently used quality shoes in a variety of sizes as I can to have on hand for whenever the time comes for either kid to bump up a size. Sometimes I find fantastic deals at Marshall’s, Target, or Kohl’s that are too good to pass up, but for the most part, Tiny and Buba’s new shoes are just new to them.
So it was very unusual for Buba, Tiny, and I to end up shoe shopping at Stride Rite this morning. Tiny had out grown her current pair of sneakers and I didn’t have another pair on deck for her. Normally, I would check out our resale children’s shop (where I often pick up Stride Rite shoes in great shape) before heading to any retail store, but we’d received a gift card to Stride Rite as a baby shower gift (almost three years ago!), and now seemed like a good time to finish it off (we’d used half already on a pair of first walking shoes for Buba, as it was tough to find a size 3 wide for a walker).
While I was waiting to pay for Tiny’s new white and pink sneakers, I witnessed this conversation:
sales woman: I’m sorry, but we don’t have that particular shoe in that size. Try Payless upstairs.
customer: says nothing, but sort of wrinkles her nose at the idea
sales women: I’m guessing they might have something similar. They’re our sister store, you know.
Well, no. I didn’t know that. I used to shop at Payless for dress shoes. This was, of course, years ago when I actually had occasions to get dressed up for and time and energy to go out. But I had no idea that Payless sold little kid shoes and that they’re in the same family as Stride Rite. Good to know.
My Little Fashionista
I’ve never been someone with the cool clothes or the cool shoes. My mother went shopping and bought almost all of my clothes by herself until I was in high school, because I just wasn’t into that sort of thing. I’m still not a big fan of shopping. It’s so time consuming- looking, trying on, exchanging for a different size. Right now, I have such a small amount of clothing that my entire fall/winter and spring/summer wardrobes fit quite easily in my dresser and half of the closet I share with T.
Tiny, I feel, will be very different from me in this area. She’s been wanting a say in what she wears each day since last summer (about 15 months old). Ever morning, I have to offer her choices or be prepared to listen to the consequences. She knows her wardrobe like the back of her hand, and she’ll request specific articles of clothing that are not presented to try to get me to offer her something different. And she LOVES shoes. At Christmas time, she threw a big fit when I had to remove her fancy shoes because I knew they were too small for her feet. She screamed, “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!” Even when I showed her the red marks and indentations the shoes had made on her feet.
So it didn’t surprise me at all that Tiny picked these shoes when we went shopping recently:
They were not at all what I had in mind when we headed to the shoe department at Target. I wanted a nice summer shoe- a sandal but with covered toes. Target had no such things for little girls, but it didn’t seem to matter. Because when Tiny saw those shoes with all the colors and sparkles, it was love at first sight. She put them on easily all by herself, and was just so happy to walk around in them that I knew we would be taking them home with us.
