"Sh-shoes." My 1-year-old looks imploringly up at me.
"You want to go play?" She grins and giggles."Then go find your shoes."
She hasn't learned the word "out" yet, or even "bye-bye." "Shoes" to her means everything. It means playing outside, riding in the car, maybe even a trip to McDonald's. If she wants to do anything, she needs her shoes.
Her last pair were a pinstriped number from Keds. I tried them on her, looked them over for cute appeal, and we were sold.
Shopping for my teenager's shoes wasn't so easy. We canvassed the mall, went to sporting goods stores and tried on every brand from Nike to British Knights. My son's question to the salesman was always the same: "What's the technology of this shoe?"
He's only 13, but he takes this as seriously as my husband does balancing the checkbook. It was the rearfoot arch of Avia that sold him.
"A flexible platform in the middle disperses shock and stabilizes the foot," the salesman said.
"These are cool, Mom. Watch this."
He took off leap-frogging around the mall, landing on his heels to watch as the rearfoot arch squished when he landed and cushioned the blow.
"Pretty neat, huh?"
Pretty neat.
A friend of mine recently took her son shopping for shoes. His old worn-out ones that used to be able to stomp dragons were replaced by shoes with turtles on them. With his turtle shoes snugly on his feet, the family went to see the movie "Robin Hood."
Halfway through the movie, my friend glanced at her son. He was staring intently at his shoes, his mind a million miles away from Sherwood Forest. He looked up at his mom.
"These are the fastest shoes I've ever had," he said.
My skateboarder is different. When he has a new pair of shoes, he feels a great need to break them in. He's not happy with them until he's worn holes in the sides and has to wrap them with electrical tape. He wears them proudly - a testament to his skating adventures, his ability to fly through the air against all odds.
"Sh-shoes." My daughter is still looking for her shoes. Without them she is like a bird nestbound. Her little feet make slapping sounds as she runs excitedly across the linoleum.
"Sh-shoes!" She holds them up. She is elated, as she should be. I think whenever any one of us gets a new pair of shoes, there's a little child inside of us ready to go play.