I have always suspected that my daughter may have a shoe fetish and today she confirmed my suspicions.
Miss Millie has always had a thing for shoes. As a small baby she would crawl over to her Dad's shoes and put things in them, play with the laces or even wear them on her hands. As she's gotten older her attraction to shoes has deepened. It is common to find Millie sitting in her room playing and talking with her shoes or running around wearing my shoes. Each morning she chooses which pair of gumboots (she has three pairs) she wishes to wear for the day and will even pick out my footwear for me too. If we go to someone else's house she will often find their shoes and play with them instead of the toys, lining them up in neat little rows.
Today we decided to go into Napier for the afternoon as a family. Emily had spent the morning out on the farm with Daddy so after a quick change into 'town' clothes, Emily choose her 'town' footwear.... a cute pair of peach coloured dress shoes. After much pushing and shoving it became apparent she has outgrown these shoes. "Never mind honey we will get you some new ones today" I tell my distraught toddler. Finally after some coxing we get her into another pair of shoes and off we go.
After we had wandered through a couple of stores we head to the Number 1 Shoe Warehouse to find some shoes for Miss Millie. Upon entering the store Millie's face lights up, her eyes go wide and she starts demanding Daddy put her down. Miss Millie is in Heaven!!
She trawls the isles of shoes getting more and more excited, pulling whichever shoes take her fancy off the shelf whether they would fit her or not. Poor Daddy has to follow her, picking up the mess while Mummy looks for some new summer sandals. After much hunting Mummy doesn't find anything suitable in Millie's size. So we tackle our daughter, throw her over her Daddy's shoulder (she is quite upset at having to leave all these shoes behind) and head off to another store.
We find the Warehouse. Again Millie's face lights up and a huge grin spreads across her face when we reach the shoe department. "Shoes!" she squeals and off she runs. With a resigned sigh her Daddy follows her, leaving me to search for some new shoes. Millie finds the gumboot section and promptly starts pulling them off the shelf and demanding Daddy put them on her. Meanwhile I find two pairs of sandals that look promising and go searching for my daughter, who is more than happy to try these shoes on. The first pair are her favourite, "Shoes!" she says and runs off with only one sandal on, dragging the second sandal behind her. I guess Millie has made her decision. Do you think I could get them off her again to take them to the check out? NO! So we manage to hold her down long enough to put the other sandal on and break the connecting string so she doesn't fall on her face. At the checkout we have to hold her up for the check-out chick to scan the barcodes still hanging from each shoe, I guess it must be a common occurrence as the check-out chick didn't even bat an eye.
We now have one happy wee toddler proudly showing off her new sandals to whom ever she can capture the attention of.
