These boots are made for walking...

Hayden and I went shoe shopping last night. He is trying to walk now, so by all accounts, the kid needs shoes.

It is, however, a much different experience than the shoe shopping of my former life. Before, I would sit and browse the shoes thinking of each one. I could envision which outfit I would wear it with and whether I could wear it with more than one. Even if I couldn't find a corresponding outfit, it still didn't matter. If the shoe is great, buy it. Guess that explains why I have 4 pairs of unworn shoes in my closet. I will find an outfit for them someday...

But this shoe shopping extravaganza was a bit different. This time, I had the kamikaze toddler trying to leap out of the shopping cart. As I perused the shoes for the "perfect" pair with one hand, I also had the one handed seat belt attempts going on with the other. Because let me tell you, the child safety belts in carts only do so much. I knew deep in my heart that if he fell out of the cart, Babies R Us might very well frown upon on me in the form of CPS. But in the middle of my train of thought regarding "Oh-theres-size-4" and "For-the-love-little-guy-puh-lease-SIT-DOWN", I saw the hand dodge out of the cart. It took with it 6 pairs of socks off the rack. One came straight out of the plastic packaging. Great, guess now we are going home with little girls ruffle socks. And he will wear them....

So we grabbed 4 pairs of shoes and took off the the toy aisle. It was only there, after a brightly colored rattle was being investigated and squawked over, that we tried on our shoes. I determined 2 pairs would make the cut and journey home with us, along with ruffle socks, a rattle, and oh....I guess we are also going home with elmo since he was just drooled on. And never mind that one pair of shoes is bright blue. They fit and we are DONE shoe shopping. He's 13 months, he doesn't really need to match.

By the way, I hate shoe shopping.

But hey, we have shoes. And he likes them.

Anyways, we are on a roll with our walking attempts. Although I'm not sure the kid will ever get the courage to really "let go" of the walking aids, I'm so proud of him taking those first strides of independence. And while he may never own a pair of shoes again for the rest of his life, he may wear the heck out of his bright blue ones for now.