“Do those shoes fit anymore?” I asked my daughter as we headed out the door to walk the dog.
I was shocked by what I saw. I thought she was wearing a doll’s shoes. I imagined little toes curled up inside like a roll of paper towels. That they might burst free at any moment.
She looked at her feet. “Nope,” she answered. “They don’t.”
“Then why are you still wearing them?” I asked. “That looks incredibly painful.”
“Yep, it is,” she said. “I can’t feel my left pinky toe. And something just popped in my right foot. I think it was a bone. But I just LOVE these shoes. I can’t think to give them up.”
She batted her eyelashes and smiled. “Let’s go!” she said before hobbling down the steps. Looked like a girl with two peg legs.
Like many houses this time of year, it’s back to school shopping time at mine. Lists for school supplies have arrived, and every day I come home to find more bags stacked floor-to-ceiling with pencils and Crayons and notebooks and other third grade-related items. We could open an office supply store in my living room. If a hurricane comes, we don’t have a bottle of water or a can of tuna fish to survive. But if the school supply apocalypse arrives, we’d be set for months.
Then there are the clothes. Back-to-school clothes. About this time of year we ignorant parents (I’m primarily referring to the male species here) always have a great epiphany: Children grow. Worse: Children grow, and all those school clothes we finished the year with don’t fit anymore. No, that’s not quite right. They look like baby clothes on giant gorillas. They threaten to cut off circulation to vital regions. They are so tight that buttons become lethal weapons when they pop free and rocket across the room. If anyone shows up to work with an eye patch, you know the reason. My daughter put on one shirt that fit her like a corset. Her little lungs struggled to expand wide enough to get air.
Inevitably we (the male species) ask the idiot’s question: “Did they shrink?!?”
Yeah, genius, a whole closet full of clothes just magically shrunk! No, couldn’t be that your kid grew. They’re not known to do that.
Happens every year, but we’re not wise to it. And we’re not keen on the solution: Back-to-school shopping extravaganza! HOORAY!
When I heard about this, I trudged off to the computer to Google “back-to-school bank loans.” More bags stacked floor-to-ceiling.
And yet, when we go to take the dog on a walk I still look down to see the same doll’s shoes jammed on her feet.
“Child!” I say. “There are boxes of new shoes stacked up like a footwear warehouse in here! Why are you wearing those?”
“I just love them,” she says with a bat of the eyes as she hobbles off. “I can’t think to give them up!”