New Shoes

This week I bought myself a new pair of sandals.  I’d wanted to replace my old grungy brown sandals since the beginning of the summer, but I never had an hour to myself to run into the shoe store.  I didn’t miraculously get an hour to myself this week, either; I finally just dragged my son along to the shoe store with me.  We had a deal, that after I finished shopping we would go to the play land there at the mall.  Bribery has its limits, of course, and he couldn’t be a patient good boy forever.  I had to work fast.  That diminishes the pleasure of shopping, but at least I got it done—and we had fun at the play land.

The sandals I bought are impractical for a stay-at-home mom.  They are open-toed with crisscrossing straps, which immediately get filled with sand or rocks at the park, and they are leather, not ideal for wading across a creek.  They’re so cute.  So far this week I have managed to devise outings on which I can wear them, such as playing at the playground that has a rubber surface rather than sand or pea gravel and going for a walk to the grocery store for “a few things.” 

 

Today, however, I am wearing my closed-toed, durable-soled, water-proof adventure sandals.  Parenting is a compromise.