Shoes, Glorious Shoes!

the winner

Why are all baby walking shoes so, well, babyish? It drives me crazy. In fact, although Emma Vance has been zipping around the house upright since her birthday a few weeks ago, I've been avoiding the topic of walking shoes like the plague. My mother has been badgering me to pick out a pair of Stride Rite shoes for E.V., that she NEEDED them, that they'd make her walking abilities tenfold. Really, Mom? I'm pretty sure that people have logged millions of years successfully walking without thick-soled shoes for infants. :)

At my mother's behest, I've looked online and perused walking shoes in stores, but I've never been able to fully convince myself that form outweighs function enough to buy a pair. Why can't manufacturers come up with an attractive pair of walking shoes? Why do they all have flowers and glitter and pink suede and TV characters all over them? Really, can't we just take her adorable, adult-style soft-soled crib shoes (that have sufficed nicely until now) and add a hard sole? I'd buy them...if they existed. So my attitude has been that she's been fine walking barefoot and that since in public she rips her shoes off immediately, what's the use?

But finally I've caved. The straw that broke this camel's stubborn back was this: THE AIRPORT. We're headed to D.C. soon, and with the date quickly approaching, I've been having nightmares of my barefoot child toddling around Hartsfield-Jackson, picking up ecoli and God knows what else. Resolved that it doesn't matter what they look like, Emma Vance and I ventured to Stride Rite today--and actually bought a pair of walking shoes! Yay!

They measured her feet (and apparently I've been buying shoes that are way to small for her...oops); we picked out a couple of pairs based on my hemming and hawing about the lack of grown-up-looking, pretty options (and my drooling over the cool boys' styles!); and E.V. tried a few on to see if she "liked" them. :) We came out with a pair of rainbow chevron, mary-jane-styled sneakers, and I'm resolved that if I can't find cute shoes to match her outfits, then we'll go the opposite direction and make sure they purposely don't match anything. (Success.) Come travel day when I'm chasing a toddler around the grimy-floored airport, I'm sure that I'll appreciate her new shoes--wild colors and all. Pray for me. ;)

Size 4.5 it is!

"Mom, how about these?"

"I like the pretty colors, Mama..."

"I can walk! I can walk!"