Shoes, beautiful shoes...

My most favourite thing in the whole wide world is shoes of all kinds, shapes and price points. I am an equal opportunity addict - and I am addicted; as sick and twisted and vacuuous as it is, I love shoe shopping above all else. OK, finding the perfect t-shirt, that's a close second because a truly great t-shirt is like the orgasm of shopping. But when it comes right down to it, I would give up a thousand beautiful tees for shoes, wondering shoes. I love shoes, lurv shoes, I lik'em a lot, I love a dub dub them.

Having had a daughter, I am beyond excited at the prospect to sharing my obsession because we all know, a boy just wouldn't do. Which brings me to boy shopping, the exact opposite of shoe shopping. Boy shopping is everything that is wrong with the world, of course that would also include such things as Britney Spears' heinous weave and the fact that the Olsen twins are billionaires. The reason that boy shopping is so very wrong is that they shop sans passion. I go to the mall and I am on a permanent contact high, overwhelmed with the choice, mentally jockeying around the dollars and cents trying to justify this must-have sweater and that must-have necklace while Mr. Lemony Lemonade (in this case, acting as the poster boy for all boy shoppers) is like, yeah, that's ok, ummmm, yeah, ok....all I need is a white t-shirt, so, can we go to the white t-shirt section now? White t-shirts? white, freakin' t-shirts? Who goes shopping for JUST A WHITE T-SHIRT? And it's not even like he's all that interested in the crummy white t-shirt either. I go shopping for a white t-shirt and I will finger, stroke, fuss and try one 100 shirts, balancing the merits of each and if the one that I want, the one that I really, really want, because it has a really cute collar or just the right length of sleeve or sits just so on the hip, isn't in my size, I will likely still buy it because I need it that badly. Mr. Lemony Lemonade doesn't find his size, he shrugs his shoulders and heads for the car. One time he refused to buy shoes that he liked because he thought that they felt a bit tight. HE THOUGHT THAT THEY FELT TIGHT? In the shoe shopping world that means, RUN TO THE NEAREST CASH REGISTER AND CHARGE IT. You don't overthink shoe purchases - you just buy. Bottom line, boys don't deserve to shop, what they do deserve is to sit around wrapped in paper towel because that's the punishment for desecrating the beauty of shopping.

Which brings me to today. Baby Girl and I went on our first official shoe shopping expedition because Baby Girl needed running shoes. I had finally accepted that I wasn't going to be able to to justify $70 Nike Shox to Mr. Lemony Lemonade AGAIN (Baby Girl had a pair when she was like one year old and they fit for about three and a half hours) so, I headed over to my fave The Shoe Company. Unfortunately, Baby Girl has recently decided that anything not pink is FOR BOYS and that's how she says it, like, you are an idiot mother and clearly I need to speak louder and slower so that you can understand and get it through your thick skull that I KNOW EVERYTHING. Her recent penchant for all things pink means that she has been making some very dubious fashion choices lately because, let's be honest, pink isn't exactly a ubiquitous sort of colour. Pink should really be reserved for a splash of colour not so much for a whole, heat-to-toe outfit. Anyhow, we got to the shoe store and before I could say, what about these fancy, pink, suede, old school, sneakers, she had removed her own shoes and had put on a pair of bright pink wellingtons with purple spots. As if that wasn't heinous enough, the boots also had antennae and bulging eyes. Once I was finally able to wrestle her attention away from the AWESOME wellies, we reviewed the rather extensive sneaker options, however, Baby Girl quickly rejected each sneaker in turn citing increasingly "boy shopping-esque" excuses; the first pair was "too tall", the second pair "for boys", the third pair was "for Victoria" (not sure what that meant) and the fourth pair was "too fast". I was about to despair when Baby Girl finally alighted on a pair that delighted her. Interestingly, they were the oldest looking pair of running shoes. When I say "oldest" read, they didn't look like they were made by a drag queen or a crafty bedazzler. These shoes were completely devoid of cartoon characters, glitter, flowers, butterflies or other embellishment. She put them on and promptly declared them GORGEOUS. Just when I thought that I was going to weep for joy at her obvious shoe shopping talents, she did the one thing all shoe addicted mothers hope for; she ran back to the display, got another pair of the same running shoes and said, "Mommy, here's your pair." God knows that if I could, I would have crammed my foot into the pint-sized Adidas silver and pink sneaker because the only thing better than wearing new shoes is wearing MATCHING SHOES with your three year old - oh yeah, that's cool. Anyhow, I did obliged by putting on a woman sized pair of sneakers to which Baby Girl exclaimed, "I LOVE THESE SHOES". I couldn't agree more!