I Hate Shoes
One of the most wonderful things about the spring weather, at least as far as I’m concerned, is that I no longer need to worry about keeping my feet warm. While I don’t mind socks so much when necessary, I think that shoes are one of the most hateful things around. I tend to go barefoot as often as possible. My feet are rough and dry and permanently calloused because of it, but I’m simply happiest this way. (And yet I just had to learn to knit socks for myself, odd isn’t it?)
RM on the other hand has developed quite the love affair with shoes these days. In the past she’s mostly worn soft leather shoes, but the other day we picked up her first rubber soled tennies to have something a little sturdier to protect her feet on the playground at the park. It took her about a half hour to get the hang of walking in a less flexible sole, but now she’s as addicted to the darn things as any of her other shoes.
As soon as she is out of bed in the mornings, she is hunting down a pair of shoes to bring to me to put on her. Yesterday, she began bringing me other pairs of shoes, then sitting and waiving her feet at me until I removed the pair she was wearing and put the second pair on. Within ten minutes she would be requesting to switch back. This was repeated no less than a dozen times. At bedtime she fusses and fusses until V agrees to rock her to sleep still wearing the shoes. We have to slip them carefully off her feet only after she has fallen into a deep sleep.
It puzzles me, being such a shoe hater myself, but there’s a troubling aspect to this whole thing. She also insists that everyone around her wear their shoes. I can be lying in bed ready to go to sleep, and she will bring a pair of my shoes to me and try to figure out how to put them on my feet. She can identify the owner of each and every pair of shoes in the house, and would probably be happiest if each of us could find a way to wear every pair we own all at one time. A shoe left unattended is quickly delivered to its owner. This child has a vocabulary of less than a dozen words, but “shoe on” has become one of her stock phrases.
She’s my little shoe monster. This could really get expensive as she gets older.
