There are these little shoes….well, they’re not SHOE shoes, they’re more like moccasins. They’re pricey–twenty-eight bucks–for something a kid is only going to wear for a few months. But all the other babies have them. They’re soft and leathery and don’t have hard soles. This makes them more acceptable because everyone knows that real shoes for babies are kinda silly. In fact, real shoes are suppose to inhibit the baby’s ability to learn how to walk. Stick a pair of leather, heeled, shoes on a kid and their feet becomes walk-less clubs.

Before I knew this, I already felt prejudice against shoes for babies. I always thought they looked weird. Plus, it’s a well known family story that my mother cried the day she bought me my first pair of shoes. I cried too, I hated them! I think I was over a year old and my father described my mother’s anguish: “It meant that you weren’t little anymore, that you would be tied down to the weight of the world and that this was only the beginning.” Or something kind of sweet and hippie like that. At any rate, I felt my mother’s pain but I also developed a healthy shoe addiction as an adult. (My father is to blame). When you’re a size 10 you must seize the opportunity when a cute pair of shoes is on sale–and in stock in your size!

At any rate, I swore that Isaac wouldn’t have baby shoes. Even the little moccasins that EVERY GD baby in Seattle has to have! But I sorta thought that once he reached the walking stage I would break down and buy him the moccasin style shoes–you know, to protect his feet. And then, a woman at play group pointed out that she too had been really anti-shoe until she realized that no amount of socks could keep her baby’s feet warm. Suddenly, I realized she was right! Isaac’s feet are always cold when we go out and it’s because he doesn’t have those little leather shoes!

So…I compromised. I bought him a slightly used pair for seven bucks…and now he’s a total hipster. (They have blue helicopters on them!)