New Shoes

It was April 2007 and Lottie was just about ready for her first pair of proper shoes. In a soppy sentimental way this is sometimes quite a milestone, a bit like the first smiles and words, although the gooey sentimentality always seems to wear off when it’s the first boyfriend or first driving lessons but by then there’s a lot more going on full stop.

 

Living with a podiatrist and a very experienced one at that means trips to shoe shops can be more frustrating for Mum that for the kids. Indeed, there are more than a few places that have been boycotted due to the grown-ups falling out rather than the kids not liking any of the shoes.

 

However, we have found one or two reputable places that just manage to hit a level of competence we can deal with, so for Lottie’s first shoes we found ourselves opening up several boxes with tiny little shoes, pink and purple in colour with flowers on the toes. With the sales assistant negotiated and suitably muted, Lottie was fitted out and the walking experience in the strange new shoes was quite a deal, not just for her but us too, as we watched each tentative step wanting to help but holding back, while she worked out the feel of the shoe and put her trust into making them do what her feet wanted. As soon as she’d taken a few steps and realsied that she could still walk it was pretty clear we were onto a winning formula and the smile of achievement said all was well.

 

That was well over eighteen months ago and we are now onto at least our 4^th, if not 5^th or even 6^th pair but I’ve truly lost count. It’s hard to tell whose shoes are whose when I open the garage door at the shoe rack – always assuming the shoes have even made it to the rack – when before me is scattered a sea of trainers, deckies, plimsoles, thongs, boots and sandals. Between the six of us there must be at least forty or fifty items of footwear! It is a brave person who makes the plunge into a dark garage without first turning on a light – I know from experience, and heaven help you if you have to go into the thong trap. And many’s the time we’ve left the shoe shop on a Saturday morning wearing our clean, bright new shoes and as we climb out of the car a mere few hours later it you’d swear they were wearing second hand shoes from Vinnie’s! I have absolutely no idea how they can rough them up so much. At least they are broken in by school on Monday morning. Personally, I still hate people treading on the toes of any new shoes I have but it seems to be a tradition among kids.

 

For me it was a big milestone when Ted got his first pair of trainers because gone were the baby days and in were the little boy days. Albeit they had Velcro fasteners, (what a truly magical invention that stuff is, it even gets a capital letter!) not quite there with the laces at that time, but they seemed massive in my hands. I remember handling them and putting them onto his feet thinking these are little boy’s feet, no more baby Ted. It won’t be long before they smell like little boy’s feet I suppose…

 

Of course these days we’ve mastered laces and the last pair of trainers were retro fitted with luminous green ones although a bike ride or two through the bush soon toned them down. He is also developing that very standard little boy trait of adapting one pair of shoes for just about every occasion. Scarlett too is into trainers now and they are also much bigger than you’d imagine her feet actually are. I suppose we see them every day and just don’t realize how quickly they change size. The kids that is, not the shoes.

 

In a final bid to sentimentality we have been able to buy one last little pair of girls sandals in white leather with shiny buckles and pretty little embroidered butterflies across the toes for Lottie, but only because she thought they were lovely and insisted on them.