The Shoe Bandit

Apparently some things are genetic: hair color, eye color, and a love of shoes. My mother loves shoes (she often tells me that she used to make her own clothing in college so she could afford to buy more shoes!); I love shoes (especially fun summer ones). And my 12-month-old daughter LOVES shoes. Any shoes. Her shoes, my shoes, daddy's shoes, brother's shoes. One of her first words is "shoes".

But she really loves the shoe store.

I was waiting for Z to come back, so I let K out of her stroller for a minute. Big mistake. She began gathering all the display shoes and stuffing them in her stroller seat, which I missed for about a minute while I was corralling A. In 60 seconds, she had managed to grab about 8 shoes, put them in her seat, and was going for more. As I took the shoes out and put them back, she was going for even more. I had to resort to holding her with one arm and putting shoes back with the other, so I could clear out her seat and strap her in again. And boy was she ever mad! Z came in and picked out a couple of pairs for her, so we let her hold her own shoes. She was happy then! :)

In other news, A has been approved for then Extended School Year (ESY) option, because he is doing so fantastically well and making incredible progress. Regular school gets out here June 15th...he'll have a couple of weeks as a break...then July 2 - July 26 he's in session Monday through Thursday (only 2 hours a day, instead of 2 1/2)...then we break for a couple of weeks and go on a family vacation to see our families in FL and GA....then school starts back early August. The 12th maybe? His teachers have noticed that when he is out of school for extended periods like spring break or the wintry weather that slammed us in February it takes him up to a week to get back in the swing of things, after being off for just a couple of days. So it makes sense to continue on a modified schedule for the summer, just to keep him going without a two month break. (As a side note, today is April 5th and it has been snow flurrying all day ~ but not sticking, thank goodness! Crazy, crazy weather).