New Shoes, Part Deux.

As Aidan has continues to grow, his feet have certainly kept up making his first pair of $50 shoes too small. This, of course, meant that his ever grateful for the parenting experience father was about to shell out yet another huge sum for stitched material, which, if laid out, wouldn’t cover a squirrel. Off to our favorite, you’ll be a bad parent if you don’t shop here for your children’s shoes, store sporting the ‘Nordy’ mascot in search of a new pair of tennis shoes. I had done my homework and found that the main thing to look for this go round was flexibility in the shoe. Armed with this knowledge off Mini-Me and I went.

Entering the shoe land of wee, the two of us were immediately approached by a sales girl/lady/woman all of 19 years old who must be participating in the summer employment program. She asked what we were looking for and I explained that we were in need of new shoes and, using the only card I had, explained that they must provide great flexibility. She said they all had good flexibility. So much for my homework. Next on the list was what kind of securing mechanism the shoes should have. I immediately expressed that the shoes should have no Velcro – as Aidan had already figured out this easy method of securing his Tivas to his feet and how to immediately take them off. So regular old laces were the shoe type of choice for me and my young son. It amazed me that of the what appeared to be 500 different types of shoes available, my proclamation of the laces only criteria seemed to limit our choices down to only four pairs.

After exercising my extensive knowledge of children’s shoes by testing the flexibility of each, I decided on a pair which was dark blue in color – so as not to show so much dirt (a brilliant move on my part I thought) and off our little 19 year old pixie sales girl went to the back room to get the shoes in the appropriate size.

Upon returning with three boxes of shoes under her arm, she explained that the pair we had selected were no longer available in the size needed, so we were back to step 1, selecting a shoe from our list of now only three options. One an ugly brown and two white. We went with one of the white pairs, produced by Strideright. A company, I’m told, that only makes children’s shoes - so how could that be a bad choice? Much to my shock and pleasant surprise, these new, larger shoes where less expensive then the first pair! It must have been a pricing mistake! That couldn’t actually be the case – more material for less cost?! Be still my foolish, early stages of parent hood, wallet! We wrapped up our transaction and stayed under the $40/pair mark – still outrageous for such a small set of shoes but, if this trend continues, his first pair of school shoes should be nearly free.

Aidan and I left with Aidan wearing his new shoes, his old ones in the box and a olive green Nordstrom Shoes balloon. So far he seems to like them and, after getting used to the slightly longer length causing some initial trip-ups, seems to be adjusting well and hasn’t lost any of his blazing, I’m going to run down the mall corridor and see if you can catch me speed.