Picking Battles

I have been a BLOGGING slacker as of late! It's certainly not due to not enough excitement going on at our household. Quite the contrary. There are actually so many blog posts running through my head that I don't know which one to start with. I am working on a doozy from our family trip to Alabama!!!

But I realized that always working on "doozies", or long posts, defeats the purpose of me wanting to capture all the memories of our day to day lives with the kids. I want to look back and remember the little things too, not just the big nightmarish family adventures...

This morning is a perfect example.

Reese starts soccer camp tomorrow and as I was pondering what to dress her in for her first day, I came to the realization that she doesn't own any acceptable tennis shoes! She has sandals, flip flops, crocs, etc...and one pair of brown tennis shoes for Fall. (Which David couldn't understand why she couldn't wear those to tramp around and get dirty.) Silly man. Those are more of a fashion statement than an actual productive athletic shoe.

So the girls and I headed to Target in search of some tennis shoes yesterday. For some reason, I am anti-cartoon figures on my kids clothes. I'm not sure why. I reserve those for jammies only. I can see the cutest outfit at the store, but if I turn it around and find a tiny little Dora face, or smiling Winnie the Pooh, back on the rack it goes.

Well, straightaway, Reese zeroed in on a pair of pink and white princess tennis shoes. Three of the Disney princess faces are on the side. She was so excited as she pulled down the box and started trying them on that I just couldn't deny her. I told her she would have to wear them around the house yesterday and today to "break them in" before she started soccer. She gladly agreed.

As we were leaving, we ran across an entire endcap of sparkly dress shoes for little girls. Black, silver, and.....RED! I was so excited! The girls and I are going to a Wizard of Oz play this week and I was afraid Drue would have no ruby slippers to wear with her Dorothy outfit. We had hit the jackpot. It was Drue's turn to be excited. She even slept with them on for naptime.

This morning as we were getting ready for church, Reese came bounding up the stairs in her little skirt and tank top with her princess shoes in hand. "Whoa, whoa, whoa...", I said. "You're not wearing those to church." What an abomination that would be! "But Mommy, you said I had to wear them a lot to break them in." Oh for Pete's sake. She had gone to all the trouble of locating both of them AND socks...who would it hurt for my prissy girly girl to wear tennis shoes to Sunday School?

Then here came Drue. I heard her before I saw her. Crying uncontrollably. I pulled her into my lap to try and discern what had crushed her little world. Between gulps of air and hiccupping sobs I faintly made out...."R-u-b-y....S-l-i-p-p-e-r-s...."

My first Motherly instinct....There is NO WAY she is wearing those to church with a green and blue skirt outfit. She will look kooky. Absolutely kooky. But all it took was one look into her big watery eyes to bring out the softer side in me. What was the big deal? If that's what it was going to take to brighten her little mood than so be it? Who cares what anybody else thought of it? I don't want to raise my girls to be as people pleasing as me and be scared to branch out for fear of what other people will think.

But that's exactly the road I'm leading them down by saying, "You can't wear tennis shoes or ruby slippers to church! What will people think?!?!". Well, for starters, they probably won't think anything, because they probably aren't even looking at my girls' shoe attire. (Although, it was pretty hard to miss Drue's shiny glittery shoes coming down the hall.) She actually got quite a few compliments from precious people, who have all probably had a 2 year old of their own at one time. "My, what pretty shoes you have on today!".

And now she's napping peacefully, and happily, upstairs...in her ruby slippers.