Monday, May 20, 2013

Shoes Blues

Our little cutlet is toddling all over town and we decided to buy her shoes. Since A and I are simple, straightforward humans, we expected the whole experience to be somewhat like this:
Step 1: Go to store
Step 2: Go to the shoe section, ask someone to come and help measure her feet
Step 3: Choose a bright, happy kiddie color and buy the shoe
We imagined that she would happily wear her shoes and toddle with giggly glee all over the store and we would be so proud.
End of imagined sequence of events.

Unfortunately, since our little one has inherited my somewhat drama-queen-esque gene, here's what reality had in store for us
Step 1: Went to store. Zeroed in on the downtown Nordstrom because our wise friend D had once told us 
Nordstrom shoes are bloody expensive but hey....they give you a balloon.
Step 2: Go to the shoe section, ask someone to come and help measure her feet.

and that's where the predictability ended. 
Step 3: Held suddenly-screaming baby in front of the shoe rack, clueless about what made her so upset. 
Step 4: A and I launched into a slightly stressful parental conversation
a: Did she poop? Maybe she needs a diaper change
me: Lemme check. Nope. She is clean
me: I think maybe something's poking her...maybe she has a sharp object...like a pin stuck to her dress
(I frantically check)
oh no...nothing like that.

so we went on for a couple of minutes...checked the usual stuff...is she hungry? nope. is she thirsty? nope. Is she possessed? nope. Is everyone at the store glaring at us? Yup. Is someone going to call 911 or Foster care? Highly likely if we don't quickly detect the cause of the problem.
We finally realized that it was the shoes. SHOES! A picked up the bright pink, absolutely adorable shoe our  meek store assistant had brought out, and held it in front of S.  

Waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh! Waaaahhhhh!!! Screeeammmmmm! Huge drops of tears fell out of her big baby eyes. She flipped. 
He held up a plain white shoe and wow - no crying. 
This was bizarre. Our daughter was terrified of a cute little happy shoe.
My extremely logical, rational husband had to admit defeat to this illogical baby he had fathered. 

I'm happy to conclude that we left behind all the adorably bright pink, green and purple shoes and bought the simple white ones. She can buy her own colorful shoes when she's 18. We continue to remain a happy family.

Tell me, I'm curious:
Do you know any babies who reacted weirdly to normal stuff?