The Saga of the Sparkly Shoes

It has taken me a month to be able to write this and think it's funny, but here goes:

One Monday in May I went to town for a dentist appointment. It was so liberating to drive a full hour alone in the car without anyone whining, "MOM!" It was even worth getting a Novocaine shot in the mouth. Anyway, I had extra time, so I decided to go shopping. It was right before my birthday, so I bought a few summer clothes. I couldn't even remember the last time I went to the mall and tried things on. Who can handle a mall with four kids?

Anyway, I was in a pretty good mood when I hit my last stop, which was Target. They had these cute sparkly flip-flops, so I bought a pair for Mazie. I knew she would love them, and she did. As soon as I took them out of the bag, she wanted to wear them. I was happy to see how excited she was over these cute shoes. She wore them non-stop for three days. The third day was my birthday, a complete bummer because Nathan left that morning for work (in another state). I was so depressed, I didn't even want to get out of bed.

About four o'clock that afternoon, I brought Mazie in from playing with her friend, and Mazie was barefoot. I asked where her sparkly shoes were, and she said she didn't know. I made her go back out and find her shoes. Later she came home and said she couldn't find them. I told her to go back out again and look. She went all up and down our street, but couldn't find her shoes. I went with her to look. I searched the yard, the sidewalks, our neighbor's yard. No sparkly shoes. I had her ask her friend, but they hadn't seen them. I was SO incredibly angry.

I realize this seems like a petty thing to be angry about. It's not like I couldn't afford to buy another pair. I don't have to choose between buying my kids shoes or food, but it was the whole point of the thing. I bought her new shoes, and she lost them in THREE DAYS!!! Plus, it's not like I can just go get another pair. We live an hour from the nearest Target. And, it was my birthday, my husband was gone, and I was already depressed.


I'd bought Mazie a new pair of Sunday dress shoes, which she desperately needed. Her other pair looked terrible, but I packed the new Sunday shoes in the box and told Mazie she couldn't have them until she found the sparkly shoes. She wailed, of course, but I was determined that she would find them.


For a week she searched for her shoes. In the meantime, she's wearing this grungy pair of flip-flops that I bought at the dollar store awhile back, and they are so dirty, you can barely tell they were originally purple. She went to all of our neighbors, crying and asking if they had seen her shoes. We live between two widows, and Mazie got loads of sympathy, but no shoes.


Nathan finished his seven-day shift and came home, which helped the rational Mommy return. Finally, I relented. I'd been praying that Mazie would find her shoes. I decided I had it all wrong. I just needed to forgive her for losing them and move on. So, I prayed to be forgiving and to help her learn from this. A few days later, Nathan needed to go to town, so we packed up the girls. (The boys were still in school.) Right before we left, Mazie said, "I think my sparkly shoes are in Paige's sandbox." I couldn't believe it. I called Paige's mom at work and asked if we could go look in their yard. She said it was no problem, so Mazie and I headed to the neighbor's house in the pouring rain. Nathan was irritated, because he was waiting to leave and we were tromping through the mud looking for shoes. Somehow, I knew that if I went to town and bought another pair, she'd find them immediately. Well, we looked in the sandbox, and there were no sparkly shoes. Oh, well. We got in the car and went to town. On the way, I talked to Mazie about losing her shoes. I said, "I hope you've learned from this. You can't take your shoes off and leave them." She insisted that she would not lose them again.

We ran our errands, and Mazie was really good. Our last stop was Target, and lo and behold, the sparkly flip-flops were on sale! They were four bucks cheaper than I'd paid the first time. Mazie was with me, so instead of getting the clear ones with silver sparkles, she had to have the pink ones. Even as we were checking out, Mazie said to me, "I won't lose these!"

We went home, got the boys and unloaded the car. I stood in the kitchen and said to Nathan, "This is what I hate about shopping. You come home exhausted, the kids are cranky, and you still have to put all this stuff away, plus finish the morning dishes that didn't get washed." He said, "I'll do the dishes and put away groceries if you'll take the kids upstairs and make them clean their rooms."

That second option didn't seem any more fun, but I agreed. I told the boys they couldn't play the Wii until their room was clean. That was easy. They started cleaning like crazy. Mazie was another story. I sat on her bed and had to point to every article of clothing, piece of paper and toy. "Pick that up. Put that in the dresser," on and on. We finished. She was eager to please because she'd just gotten new shoes. We cleaned the closet, under the bed, the entire floor. Everything was spotless. Finally, I noticed there were two blocks under Josie's crib, so I had Mazie crawl under the crib to get them. She crawls under, grabs the blocks and squeals, "My sparkly shoes!"

I said, "No way!" The entire room was clean. There was no way her old sparkly shoes were under there. Sure enough, she crawls behind the toy box and came back with the first pair of sparkly shoes. She'd hidden them between her toy box and jewelry box and forgotten they were there. It was Murphy's Law, I suppose. The very day I bought a new pair, she found the first. At least they are different colors.