The End of An Era

It’s official. I’ve retired my daughter’s size 6 shoes.

These are the shoes that have taken her little feet everywhere since last fall!

First, are the Perkle Shoes. Mara, my mom, my sister Mary, and I were in Sioux City, Iowa, shopping at the mall last October when we found the Perkle Shoes. This makes these shoes kind of special. The four of us are rarely together because we all live so far away, and we haven’t been shopping together since!

Mara had a love/hate relationship with these shoes. When we first got them, they seemed to fit perfectly in the store. I was so excited because Mara has wide feet, and it can be challenging to find shoes that are the right width. But the second time we put them on her feet, Mara cried and cried and said they hurt her feet. She was at a stage where we were working on not crying about things you just don’t want to do.

So I was in a hard position, as the mom, trying to determine whether they actually hurt her feet or whether she was just being difficult (which she was very capable of doing!). In the end, we learned she was just being difficult. But that’s when the “love” part of the relationship began.

Once we actually dealt with her attitude, Mara and her Perkle Shoes became inseparable. She always always insisted on wearing her Perkle Shoes, no matter what they clashed with!

I took her to The Childrens Place again to see if we could find one more pair of shoes. Something a little more neutral in color. Something that could coordinate with her un-purple outfits.

Enter the Sneakers.

They were her size. They fit.

But this time, Mara had her first Major Meltdown while in a store trying on shoes, instead of at home.

Mara had found Pink Shoes (with leopard print) and immediately fell in love. She did not want Sneakers. She wanted Pink Shoes, which, like Perkle Shoes, still clashed with many of her outfits.

But Pink Shoes were only $3.99. Sneakers cost more. So I decided we would get them both and I could decide at home, where we could control the Meltdowns a little better.

And we ended up keeping both pairs.

Since last fall, Mara has grown and changed so much.

We’re now able to talk through things a little more. To discern between Meltdown Moments and when the shoes actually don’t fit. We’re able to tell her, “You may not cry when Mommy tells you what to wear,” and enforce that.

But they really don’t fit now: Perkle Shoes. Sneakers. Or Pink Shoes.

And when she tells me they hurt her feet and asks to take them off, I know it’s true.

So it was a bittersweet moment, as I took these three pairs shoes out of her shoe basket and tucked them away for our next little girl.

Yesterday as Mara was getting dressed, she said to me, “I think I’ll wear my sneakers.”

“They’re too small, sweetheart,” I told her. And the melancholy part of me thought, “It’s the end of an era.”