new shoes

Cara has suddenly outgrown almost all of her clothes.  I guess that happens every now and then, especially if you are a wild toddler.  I refuse to buy more winter-ish clothing as I suspect spring is following close behind us, but shoes are kind of another story.  I believe in shoes.  Bad shoes can cause a very bad day.  The tired at the end of a long day is exacerbated by sad, tired, painful feet.  So, I am willing to spend some money on good shoes.  Fortunately, PJ is also willing, so we packed up and headed to Stride Rite this afternoon.

You would think that retail stores would want people to buy stuff, but Stride Rite is apparently a different type of store.  There are cute, expensive shoes everywhere, sparkles, light ups, velcros, elastic, but not one pair of these shoes fit my child.  The sales lady (who obviously knew all there is to know about toddler shoes) started off by insulting us.  "Wow, she has some fat feet!"  Really??  There are so many euphemisms for "fat!"  How about "chubby" or "chunky" or "lovable?"  Then, she insulted our parenting skills. "Oh, these shoes are way too small."  Yes, I admit that we are the bad parents who are shoving our poor child's feet into shoes that we suspect are too small.  THAT'S WHY WE'RE HERE. 

Miss Know It All About Shoes measured Cara's foot and told us that she was measuring at a size 6, which is what we thought.  But, she also told us that we would need to buy a size 6.5; otherwise, we'd be back here in a month to buy a bigger size.  Okay, fine.  Cara picked out a pair of shoes, and the sales lady went to the depths of the storeroom to find it.  An hour and a half later, she returned, not with the shoes we asked for, but with the ugliest, tackiest pair of shoes in the entire store in a 6.5 wide.  We put them on Cara, and they looked like clown shoes.  Cara tripped over her toes.  Of course.  Clearly, there was too much room in the front of those tacky, ugly shoes.  PJ mentioned that they looked too big, seemed too big, felt too big, but shoe goddess wouldn't budge.  We asked her to check on a few other pairs, maybe even in a 6, and three hours later, she returned empty handed.  She told us that none of the styles we wanted came in Cara's size and they wouldn't fit anyway because our daughter's foot is too fat for a Mary Jane style shoe.  We asked if she would check on a size 6 in anything, and she pretty much refused. 

Stride Rite, if you happen to read this, I want you know that you have the most ineffective sales people ever.  We walked in ready to drop some serious change on toddler shoes, and she basically refused to let us buy any.  But that's okay.  We went to Dillard's and found these (in a size 6) for less than half the price:

and they are so much cuter!