For the most part I would never categorize myself as the mom who said "I will never..." I pretty much knew better than to ever say never. I knew there were things I would likely not do or do my darndest to avoid but there weren't too many things I said I would NEVER do/let my kids do. I have never been the biggest fan of "light up" shoes...even back in the 80s/early 90s when light up shoes first came out and I was in the target demographic - they just weren't my thing. So I always thought "I will never buy those for my kids". I didn't see the need - now all of a sudden BAM - lightning mcqueen light up shoes adorn my two and half year old's feet.
It all started when we were moving out of my parents house into our own house. For about a week every time we put Scott's shoes on he would complain that they hurt, we were smack in the middle of moving so it probably took me a full extra week to make it to the shoe store for him (mommy's bad!) and when I did sure enough he had been wearing size 7s and he's now a size 8 (whoops buddy, seriously my bad).
So we get to the shoe store (mimi in tow, THANK GOD!) it's 100+ degrees and nobody wants to be there - especially Scott. Side note: he's always been totally freaked of the shoe store, mainly getting his foot sized, and the scale at the doctor's office...go figure. So Owen's in the front pack napping/crying/teething/screaming/sweating, Scott is not cooperating what-so-ever and the sales ladies start to circle. They saw me (mind you they didn't know we were mid move with a toddler and teething 4 month old but from my clothes, hair-style (lack of) and overall demeanor (and smell?) they just knew...they looked at each other like "here she is girls, the one we've been waiting for, the sucker, let's see if we can get her to buy 40$ toddler shoes, won't that be so funny!"
Sunshine Susie asked if she could help us and immediately offered Scott a "sucker" if he would get his shoes sized. Hind sight, this should have been my first clue to GET.THE.HELL.OUT.OF.THERE. Fortunately for me Scott doesn't know the word "sucker" and mimi saved the day and declined the offer. Then S.S. starts pulling shoes in the size I guessed we'd probably be looking at (8 wide - do I know my kid or what cuz that was exactly what he needed - word!) so she starts with spiderman light ups, well Scott is not familiar with the super hero world yet so I felt like I won when he looked at her blankly and continued to sulk about getting shoes. Then, imagine me standing all cocky in front of S.S. "you offered my son fancy commericialy shoes and since I'm such a good parent he doesn't even want them...hahaha (evil laugh)" then BAM, I'm flattened by the lightning-mcqueen-light-up-shoe-train. That's where she goes next and his face lights up brighter than the shoes. We sit down to try them on and he is on cloud 9 (I'M SCREWED!). With lightning mcqueen on one foot and a sandal on the other (he really needed new shoes, of all varieties, and they were buy one get one at some sort of discount or free, I'm not sure, it was all a blur after the train hit me) I try to convince him to wear the sandals out of the store (DUMBEST MOMMY EVER). "No mommy lighting-a-queen shoes!" DAMMIT! I check the prices and it turns out lightning mcqueen was only 5$ more than the other tennies I was going to buy and aside from cutting his foot off, I already knew that I had no choice but to take them home. So Scott stands up and grabs Mimi's hand and says "I need to go to my car", he's no dummy.
At the end of the day look how happy it made him.
I learned my lesson, never say never. Now the only reason I'm mad is that I bet you those sales ladies high fived each other after the sale at my expense. And for the record I was not really so cocky as to assume my "great parenting" made my kid not want the spiderman shoes, he really just doesn't recognize him. Here's to hoping Scott's feet stay this small for slightly longer than average, that he does not throw them out of the stroller/lose one so that Owen can enjoy them as much in a couple years!
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