In Her Shoes

 

My daughter has a shoe fettish. This has only been known to us for a few weeks--but this "phase" came on hard and strong. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she isn't just "toddling" now--she's full on walking almost to the point of running.

In fact, "shoe" was her third word, behind "Daddy" and "Papa"...don't feel bad for me though, this week she's actually started saying "Maaaaama"--in a sad and mournful tone, but "Mama" just the same. Yup. I'm her fourth word. This girl has her priorities in line: Daddy, Grandpa, Shoes, Mom.

Everything she needs in life, in four words.

Every morning, after she finishes her breakfast and sometimes before she is even dressed for the day, she brings me her shoes (whichever pair she finds first) and sits down on my lap so I can put them on her. Then, as soon as they are velcroed or snapped, she gets up and takes off and for the next 30 minutes I listen to the slip-slap of her soles on the hardwood, as she walks back and forth, usually bringing me a pair of my shoes in the process.

It's as if she is trying to say, "It's day, Mama! It's time to get up and go!"

My daughter is a mover. She always has been. She was overactive in the womb and has never really been docile, except maybe for the three weeks she spent in the NICU, and even then she astounded us on a daily basis.

And so I know it bothers her that I am very content being the type of person who likes to sit back, relax, and watch and would choose a day at home over a day out and about, running around.

Lately, we've had to compromise. I get her out of the house once or twice a day if she will sit down and watch a couple of episodes of Arthur with me on Netflix.

Kevin's shoes must be very important in both of our lives, since last night I dreamed I was wearing her glittery blue plastic sandals in Disneyland.  My "dream doctor" husband told me my dream was a result of Kevin trying to put her shoes on me all day, " but also it is a way that you are remembering her while on vacation."  Maybe it was a way of my inner Jiminy Cricket telling me not to feel guilty that Scott and I are taking off for the weekend and leaving her behind... or maybe it was to remind me that becoming a mother means you never really "get away" from your children. They are always there, bringing you a pair of their shoes and reminding you that they are already learning how to walk away from you, and someday, their feet and bigger shoes will take them far and away and there is nothing you can do about it. Along with learning to walk, they start to learn that they are their own person, and those shoes epitomize that.

I probably walked a mile in my daughters shoes in my dream last night. Every day she tries to put mine on but doesn't get farther than a few inches. And somehow I find it funny that every time I return to my parents home, I almost always slip on a pair of my mom's shoes to do something or another: take a diaper out the garbage, visit the dog or the swingset, unload luggage from our car.

I'm still learning to wear my mother's shoes, swollen summer feet and all.

And thus, with a pair of size 4 jellie sandals and some old, blue, size 10 flip flops from Old Navy, my daughter and I, as the next generation, have started together down the long, long road of trying to understand one another and learning to let each other go.