O Where O Where Has It Gone

Abigail is a barefoot fan. She prefers walking around with her feet au natural to having to wear shoes regardless of temperature or weather conditions. And since she is quite the dexterous little three-year old, her shoes rarely stay on her feet, which is particularly problematic in our behemoth 15-passenger van. Once off her feet, those shoes could slide anywhere and virtually disappear. Just today we discovered her pink croc which has been missing for over two weeks.

Today was no exception to the "I'd rather be barefoot" tendency. But this time, she was wearing shoes and socks, which makes for four items which can be removed and tossed willy-nilly. Wednesday is piano lesson day, so we took the oldest three Rutherfords to study and then I ran every errand I could think of where the younger set doesn't need to get out of the van. We dropped off our recycling, did banking, made our Goodwill donations . . . anything we could, really. If the weather is nice, I prefer to go to a park. But three days of rain had me content to simply keep everyone in their car-seat purgatory rather than making mud-pies.

At the last minute, though, I ran into my dad in the parking lot at the grocery store. Actually, that's not true. I passed him on the road and stalked him to the grocery store. It was something to do to kill time and keep the kids buckled in. Besides -- they thought it was great fun that dad didn't even notice our giant car until we pulled up next to him at the parking lot.

We did need some tortilla chips for lunch and I felt my coffee-buzz was still nice and strong, so we all got out of the car to go inside. Of course, that was when I learned Abigail had nothing on her feet. I found her shoes easily enough ("Oh, I threw those back there at the twins to see if I could make my aim better.") The socks were a little trickier. Only one could be located quickly, so I told her we would simply put her shoes on without socks. Given the smelly nature of our kids' feet this is usually an unheard of solution. I put the left shoe on with no problem.

But when sliding her foot into the right shoe, it seemed really tight and I found myself banging her foot in. At this point, Abigail started crying about her foot hurting. Puzzled, I pulled the shoe off, and put it back on. Still tight and these shoes are fairly new. More tears. I'm noticing all the little Rutherfords in the parking lot with my dad and I am starting to feel really rushed. Finally, I drug the known sock off the floor behind us and put it on the right foot before putting the shoe on, thinking perhaps her toe was getting caught on something. More tears. I felt the end of the shoe and was shocked that her toes were completely at the end of the shoe. It couldn't be helped now. I grabbed Abigail's hand and told her we would have to go.

I hustled the poor girl with her one sock-on, too-tight shoes across the parking lot in order to catch up to dad and the rest of the kids. Little Jane, who was in the crook of my right arm, kept looking at Abigail and saying "Help?" in her sweet, tiny voice. Well, I may have my moments, but even I am not amazing enough to miraculously make a shoe fit. We shopped in record time and the moment we were back at the van, I took off the offending shoes and told Abigail we would find her a larger size of sneaks as soon as humanly possible.

Once home, I asked all the kids to search the van for Abigail's missing sock. In a family this size, you quickly realize that if you don't locate something within moments of its being misplaced, you are usually out of luck and it is gone forever. No sock, but that dratted missing croc was finally unearthed beneath Tucker's booster. (Why there????) Partial victories are absolutely acceptable and applauded in cases such as this. We unloaded the van and went on with our day. I set the offending shoes on the door dresser in order to pass them onto another Disney Princesses loving toddler.

Tonight, as Scott was preparing to leave for work, I picked up the shoe again. I shared with Scott how Abigail was complaining they were so tight and how surprised I was that these shoes just don't fit her any more. I decided to check for a foot imprint because she had only worn the shoes a few times, thinking Scott could just take them to work and give them to someone in need. No foot imprint in the left shoe, but I really couldn't tell in the right since my fingers couldn't make it to the end of the shoe. I was hitting something hard and in the way. I managed to pry away part of it with my finger and there it was. The missing sock. I'm thinking it wasn't really that the shoes were too small. Instead, it is that the shoes were never meant to be worn with the sock stuffed into the toe. I think that is a reasonable deduction

Scott, of course, chuckled heartily. As he should have, even though it never occurred to me to look inside the shoe for a missing sock. I don't think any of our kids have ever voluntarily set a sock inside their shoes. And while I appreciate her attention to detail, in this case it was really quite unhelpful.

And now I will have the added benefit of explaining to our Abigail why she will not be getting a new pair of shoes, even though she talked about it all afternoon. Which just now has me wondering . . . was it really attention to detail, or is she much more brilliant and conniving than I thought?