Elsa's New Shoes

Jarrett, Elsa, and I enjoyed a nice five-mile trek along the pedestrian trail around the base of Stone Mountain on Saturday morning. Probably about a quarter of the way through the walk, Jarrett and I noticed that Elsa had taken one of her shoes off, so we thought it would be a good idea to stow it away in the bottom of the stroller so as not to lose it. So I stuffed it in the cargo holder underneath Elsa with all of our other layers we shed as we walked. Wouldn't you know that when we got back in the car and were loading everything in, that shoe was nowhere to be found. This was quite the frustrating discovery (1) because I know I put that shoe in the storage area underneath Elsa and (2) this pair of shoes is not that old, and Elsa was not anywhere near growing out of them. We drove around alongside the trail once before leaving to see if we could spot the shoe by any chance, but to no avail. I did, however, notice another little one's lost shoe placed atop a sign, so this must be a fairly common occurrence.

I was bummed. Her shoes were really quite cute and went with just about everything. And I did not want to have to buy yet another pair just for her to grow out of them in likely a rather short period of time. But what were we to do? We have a toddler now. She walks. She needs shoes. So we set out after her nap yesterday and visited one of the local children's stores that sells kids' shoes. Unfortunately, Hoopla, where we purchased her previous two pairs of shoes, officially closed its doors yesterday at 2:00 p.m., so they were out of the running. The only other local shop I knew sold shoes was Wiggle, so that is where we ended up getting this new pair of sneakers.

 
As you can see, they are pink. Very pink. Apparently kids' shoemakers seem to think that little girls' shoes need to be very... well, girly. There was a little pair of brown sneakers with yellow on the sides that I would have probably gotten had they had them in her size. The other brown sneakers they had were deemed too boyish by Jarrett, so pink it was. And now she has sneakers rather than Mary Janes, which means she might be wearing sneakers with her Easter dress this year.

I am still, a day later, aggravated over the loss. Jarrett and Elsa even drove back out to Stone Mountain today to drive around again just in case the shoe decided to make an appearance. It is just dumfounding to think about how that shoe made it out of the stroller. But we have checked and rechecked everything that came out of that stroller and have looked all over the car. It's gone. So I guess we must say farewell. We loved you while you were with us, little shoe.