defeat

I have been defeated. I have been looking, casually, whenever I’m out and about, for fall/winter dress shoes for K. She has some white patent ones from last spring that are too tight on her and some white faux leather sandals from this summer that still fit. But she doesn’t have any black Mary Janes or felt/velour closed-toed shoes for this fall. I just kept thinking I would find some at one of the four Targets nearby. We have to go to a wedding tomorrow. Fashion ettiquette (not that I normally pay much attention to such things, but I am aware of the whole no white after Labor Day general rule) would dictate that she not wear her white sandals to the wedding. So there I am out tonight. Going to first one and then the other Wal-Mart that are in our vicinity. Took me a whole hour (WM on a Friday night is not the easiest parking lot or store to navigate) to get to the two stores only to find that there were NO black shoes in a girls’ size 10 to be found. Well, in the second WM I did find one pair of shoes and walked around with them for a few minutes before realizing that one of them had a strap and the other one didn’t and couldn’t be fastened. I can’t find shoes for K for this wedding or for Sunday or for any dress occassion. I did quickly run in Rack Room Shoes which happened to be in the same shopping center as the second WM. I could have gotten her a pair of black dress shoes there for $24.99. I couldn’t do it. I figure if I’m going to pay twenty-five bucks for children’s shoes they had better come in navy blue (which matches more of her clothes than black does) and be a whole lot prettier than these were. I do not understand why children’s shoes (at least the cheap ones at Target and WM and so forth) seem to only come in black and white and sometimes red and the occassional pink. Not a wide selection of colors on the cheap end of shoes for little girls. I can’t justify buying the expensive (but very well-made and good for your feet) Stride Rite shoes for Sunday/dress-up wearing. I will spend more than $20 on a pair of shoes K will wear every day. All her tennis shoes are Stride Rite. But she gets good wear out of them. For shoes that she only wears a few hours each week, I’m not laying down that kind of money. I came back empty-handed tonight, defeated in my valiant attempt to shod my child before morning with appropriate footwear. So, we’re back to square one. I guess she will wear white shoes to the wedding tomorrow. Fortunately nobody usually pays attention to what shoes a 4 year old has on. But I am still left the the problem of finding her some dark colored shoes for Sundays this fall and winter.

excited over the strangest things

My vacuum has given up the ghost. It no longer sucks. Which sucks. So I have borrowed my neighbor’s vacuum. She’s going out of town for 2 weeks so it isn’t any big deal to her. Not like her husband is going to use it while she’s gone either. I can’t wait to vacuum. Since my vacuum has been slowly dying over the past few months, I honestly don’t think this carpet has been vacuumed well since we moved in, nearly 3 months ago. I’m so excited about finally being able to get the dirt up.

blame

Kyra blames me for her experience at the allergist today. New doctor, new office. Difficult, complicated directions to the main office that we will never visit again as we will be seen subsequently at the branch nearest to us. Doctor wanted a blood sample. I agreed. Kyra got her finger stuck and they took two vials of blood from her finger. Screamed the whole time. I wound up sitting on the examining table with her just holding her while she cried. It was awful. and it took forEVer. I felt so inadequate as a parent. I didn’t know what to say to make her feel better. But tonight and all afternoon she kept saying, “you shouldn’t have said yes to the testing, mama.” “It’s all your fault my finger hurts.” She really does blame me for it since I did agree to it. I hate that.