Coveting The Flinstone's Choice of Footwear

When you live in New York, Labor Day is a bittersweet moment. On one hand, there is only a few more days of insanity before you finally send those heathens of yours back to the school system. (Ha! Now they're your problem for 6 hours a day!) But it also heralds the end of summer. So while I get to stop pulling my hair out refereeing fights and wiping spills, I also get to add sweaters and socks back into my wardrobe. Sigh. I will miss seeing you my happily painted toenails!

I am, however, more than ready to be done with school shopping with twelve-but-this-close-to-thirteen year old daughters. This summer has been renamed "The Summer Of The Horrible Shoe Search". Yes folks, apparently eighth grade is when I lost the ability to choose shoes for my daughter. No, let me correct that. I apparently lost the ability to choose shoes that my daughter wouldn't look at me in horror as if saying, "You expect me to wear those? In public? Where people will see me?"

I've seen the inside of so many shoe stores that I can probably tell you who has the better selection, price, and quality of shoes. I can tell you this because we spent copious amounts of time sequestered in these building whilst thou daughter of mine subsequently turned her nose up at all but 2 pairs of shoes. Neither pair were available in her size of course.

It was getting quite desperate in my house as we were getting down to the wire and the oldest two didn't have new shoes for school yet. This is how hard shopping for my 16 year old son was:

Me (showing pictures of sneakers online): Do you like any of these?
Son (points to 2 pairs): Either of those are fine.

Done. In 5 minutes. The youngest was just as easy.

Me: Do you like this pair or this pair?
Baby Boy: I like that one better but both are good. Can we go look at the toys now?

Again, done in 5 minutes.

This is me, shopping with the almost teenaged one:

Me: What about this pair?
Daughter: (Gives slight head shake with a look on her face that makes it seem as if she just walked into someone's fart cloud. Which is to say part horrified, part disgusted.)

Lather, rinse, repeat. For 5 stores. Four separate times. Over the course of a month. If I hadn't been done in by the constant bickering because they've had way too much togetherness and need to go back to school, then shopping for shoes with the girl probably pushed me over the edge.

Even now, after finding her size online in the only 2 pairs of shoes that she would consent to being seen in public in have been ordered, the memories of the ordeal are enough to make me shudder.

Next year I'm sending my husband out shoe shopping with her. It might be the only way I survive it.