A few weeks ago, I noticed that the little one's first shoes were becoming a bit tight.
The thought of shoe shopping made me feel a bit nervous, and understandably so. Shopping is bad enough when the pair are confined to a trolley or buggy, but letting both children roam free somewhere without padded walls just seems like asking for trouble. Now that he's running, it's exactly what I imagine herding baboons to be like.
In order to avoid putting myself through this ordeal, I ordered a foot measurer online with the idea that I would just buy shoes from the internet, which is basically how I do 97% of my shopping now, but when the (correctly measured I'll have you know) shoes arrived, they didn't fit and had to go back. And so, over the weekend, with the promise of a sale on, my parents and I took the toddlers to a shoe shop to get the small one's feet measured properly.
He'd gone up a whole size; no wonder the shoes he had were a struggle to get on.
I feel a bit mean because I'm sure the big one never had her feet squeezed into a pair of too-small shoes, but he's barefoot most of the time anyway as they were too hot for the brief summer we had. He'd had them since he first started walking back in April, and at £26 for three month's sporadic wear they didn't seem particularly good value for money. Even when I buy cheap shoes I wear them to death; I've got a pair of £6 flip flops that are on their third or fourth year. Children are so bloody expensive.
We selected about the only pair of shoes in the sale in his teeny-tiny size (£20! Bargain??) and decided to purchase them. Job done. Let's all go home and eat crisps.But no.
The big one decided she wanted her feet measured and the nice shoe shop lady obliged (there weren't many customers in...maybe they saw us arriving). Meanwhile, my son busied himself rearranging the shoes and climbing up the displays. To be honest I figured that a shop stocking shoes for toddlers would probably be fairly used to this and would at the very least have their shelves screwed to the wall so I let my parents follow him around, replacing shoes on their racks, whilst I oversaw the measuring.
To my horror, she too had gone up a size. What is it with children insisting on growing?
She had her sights set on some wildly impractical and ostentatious Frozen shoes, covered in glitter and a garish print. Actually I don't need to describe them, here they are:I didn't think they would go with very much but I pick my battles wisely and this is one I just couldn't face so she tried them on.
Fortunately perhaps, they didn't fit. They were too big and fell off of her feet when walking around. Phew - that's that, right? Maybe pick another, more sensible pair that fit?No. She wanted THOSE shoes.
What about these ones? Look, they have ice creams on the side. You like ice cream!
Can I have an ice cream?
No, just try the shoes on. (They're even £6 more FFS).
I want ice cream!
OK... if you try them on, you can have an ice cream.
I don't WANT to. I want THESE ONES.
Look! These ones have little ears on!
NO! I WANT FROZEN SHOES. FROZEN SHOES!
At this point, she's lying on the floor in the shop, red faced, kicking and screaming in full-on terrible twos mode.Of course I don't want to encourage this type of behaviour so I removed the shoes and took her out of the shop.
Just kidding, my parents bought them and she fell over her feet a hundred times on the walk back to the car*.
So, to recap; we left the shop with my screaming toddler in a pair of ridiculous shoes that didn't fit, and my parents spent £14 for the privilege.
Still, everyone survived, and the small one got his shoes, so I'm taking it as a win anyway.
*This reminds me of once when I bought shoes off drug dealer. No idea what he laced them with but I was tripping all day.
If you'd like to read more from Frances and the Whingelets, you can find them at Whinge Whinge Wine. You can also find her wasting time over on Facebook.