Shoe Shopping Drama

Yesterday afternoon the boys & I went to the mall to get Liam some new shoes. We had just bought Zachary some new ones a month or so ago (though by the looks of them, you’d think he’d had them for much longer than that). We didn’t get Liam new ones at the time because we found a pair of Zachary’s old shoes that fit him perfectly, and they were still in great shape. So we didn’t see the need to spend money on new ones at the time. However, the more Liam wore them, the more we realized they weren’t in as good of shape as we thought. The biggest (and well, really the only) problem was that the Velcro was so crammed full of stuff that the strap wouldn’t stay closed. He probably spent half his day closing his shoe back up. I know it frustrated his teachers because the one in the afternoon made a comment about it more than once. Finally we decided it was time. So off we go to buy new shoes. We got to the shoe store, and get his feet measured – turns out he’s on the “big boy” wall (sniff sniff), so we look at the options. He immediately points to the ones that are just like the ones Zachary has. He also pulled down a pair of white shoes. As the lady went back to get his size, Liam began to have a total fit. He wanted to try on the display shoes, and he got mad because I put them back. He didn’t understand that she was going to get him both shoes. She finally came back, but with just the white ones (they didn’t have the other ones in his size). He tried them on and I told him to walk around. He very slowly & carefully walked a couple of steps. I tried to get him to run in them, but he just kept saying, “I can’t…” ??? After a minute or so I asked him if he liked them and he said “No, I want to try on another one”. So we picked out a couple more, and once again she came back with just one pair. We attempted to walk & run again – but only had success with the walking. At this point I asked Liam if he liked those or the other ones. He started to say the other ones (which the lady so foolishly had taken back to the stock room), so I tried to convince him that he liked these better. These were more silver/gray, which means we won’t notice how dirty they are as fast (bonus!). About 10 minutes later I finally had him convinced that those were the shoes (this was after he whined to try on more shoes – unfortunately, they didn’t seem to have much in his size, so we were kind of out of options). We put them on his feet, paid, and left. It was never that hard with Zachary – he’d pick 1 or 2 pairs to try on and he usually always liked the first pair he tried.


It was truly an adventure. And a couple people on facebook mentioned shopping without the kids and it not really occurring to them to give them a choice. Well, couple of things there. Good luck shoe shopping without your kids in the store. There is no telling on any given day what size their feet will be. Both boys have measured anywhere from regular width to extra wide and back again, and for a while Zachary seemed to have stalled out at the same size for about a year (which saved us lots of money in new shoe purchases during that time!). In a perfect world, I do most of their shopping without them – I occasionally give them a choice on things like Christmas or Easter outfits, or ask if they like something before I buy it (like the hot pink polo shirt I got for Zachary, which he actually said he liked), but in general, I handle that on my own. As for the choices, in my experience, that only works so long – especially when they are there with you. When they see 20 different pairs of shoes on the wall, it is just not possible (in my world) to select one without them weighing in on what they like. I definitely narrow it down – some are too expensive, some are too ugly, etc. – but I’d rather give them a choice of 2 or 3 that I’m OK with than pick something without their input and have to listen to them whine about it for the next 6 months until it’s time for a new pair. It’s easier with clothes because they usually haven’t seen all the options that are available, so they’re fine what whatever I pick. But with shoes, they do see what’s available, so it’s harder to not let them be a part of the decision.

In the end we did buy a nice pair of shoes, which hopefully the Velcro will stay unclogged until he outgrows them.