Concerning Shoes

I am constantly surprised at the rate my children run through shoes.  Their feet seem to grow at exponential, unpredictable rates.  They wear through shoes in an unfathomable fashion.  Pieces of velcro worn through in a season, holes in the toes, holes in the toes, holes in the soles, broken straps, broken buckles — Let me count the ways a pair of shoes can be destroyed in one measly season!

I’m a shoe minimalist.  I don’t want my kidlets to have a lot of different shoes, just a few pairs of shoes that fit into the functions that they need to fulfill:  a pair of sandals, a pair of flip flops, a pair of winter boots, a pair of tennis shoes (well actually two pairs of tennis shoes, since one pair needs to stay at school), a pair of shoes that are appropriate for church.  Still, I find that there are a lot of shoes in my household, and I continue to be astounded at their deterioration rate.

I hate shoe shopping, and I wear my own shoes down to their bones as well.  Luckily for me, though, my husband doesn’t mind shoe shopping at all, and I just make a list of all the shoes needed at key times during the year.  He loads up the children affected, and takes them out for a half day of shoe searching.  They are always thrilled to come home with that box of new footwear.  They love showing me their new shoes.

Mr. Trouble on Feet recently wore through his pair of sandals and tennis shoes all at once, so he was in the market for new shoes.  The new shoes are blue and black, and he loves them.  Sadly, they are size 13 shoes, which means he’s outgrowing kid shoes at age four.  Sigh.  The trouble with tall kids is the fact that all the fun kid clothes are outgrown far too fast.