Lauren is bound to start walking one of these days and I decided it was high time she got some real shoes! She's pretty much just worn socks since she was born. I've purchased and returned countless numbers of soft-soled baby shoes in attempts to find shoes that work for her. Her right foot is more narrow than her left, and because her ankle bone is beside her heel bone rather than on top of it, her right heel is higher and she has less of an actual ankle available for shoes. I thought some boots or booties would help to support her ankle but her bowed tibia creates a challenge in that they won't fit around her calf. Once she's an established walker, we'll need to get a lift put on her right shoe to help even things up for her. So, even though I was nervous about getting her measured and finding a shoe that fit, I didn't want shoes to be a completely new thing to her once she's walking either.
On our trip to Somerset Mall, I asked my mom and sister if they would mind going with me to a children's shoe store. We went to this little Stride Rite store and it started getting pretty crowded with customers, and the sales people didn't even have time to acknowledge us. My sister ducked out and said she would be right back. A few minutes later, she came back and whispered to us that we were going next door to Nordstrom because they had a baby and kid's shoe department with no one in it. We went there and were helped right away by a young man and he was so great with Lauren. I told him that we were there to have Lauren measured because she had never had shoes before and her feet are different sizes. He didn't even blink an eye and went ahead with measuring her. He said it helps if they are standing on the foot that is being measured, so we brought her up to a stand but it didn't work because that leg didn't touch the ground. I said "oh, and that leg is shorter" and again, without missing a beat he helped us get her positioned so that her right leg was bearing her weight. Once we knew Lauren's shoe sizes, 4 1/2 and 5, the salesman led us to the shoes we could choose from. There layed the perfect little pair of pink and white Nikes. He brought them out and put them on Lauren's feet--no problem! We stood her up and she acted like she was frozen for a minute, but then seemed to warm up to them a bit and started moving around. The salesman came back with a camera to take Lauren's picture. We were making her laugh so much that people's heads turned and some even gathered around. I think they thought she was the latest Nike model! He put Lauren's picture in a sweet little keepsake card for her first pair of shoes. The whole experience could not have gone better!
