Archived: You can never have too many shoes

Original Post Date: October 29, 2006
Well, Ethan has some sort of a stomach bug, and without getting too graphic, let me just say that I have seen enough infant vomit in the last three days to last me a lifetime. Of course, how much infant vomit does one really need in a lifetime? Anyway. We’re off to the doctor first thing Monday morning, so hopefully he’ll be better soon.
Abby has been full of 3 year old sass lately, and it seems to be manifesting itself in hysterically embarrassing ways.
Example one. I went to pick her up from her Sunday school class this morning, and she hands me her project for the day, a piece of paper with a square of aluminum foil glued on to serve as a mirror, with the caption “Look Who God Made” on it. I hold it in front of her with the intention of letting her see herself and say, “Look what God made!” She glared at me, grabbed the paper, and said (loudly), “GOD didn’t make that! I made that! In Sunday School!” Once the other moms stopped laughing, they assured me that their kids say stuff like that all the time. Sure.
Example two. Ethan had a brief non-sick period this afternoon, and it was a beautiful day, so we decided to take the kids to the new outdoor mall in Rogers. We went into a shoe store, and I took one minute, one minute, to look at a pair of shoes for myself while Matt and the kids wandered around the front of the store. Apparently my husband took issue with this, and apparently he communicated this to our daughter, because as I’m slipping on a shoe, Abby appears at the end of the aisle and yells, “Mommy! You have enough shoes already! You don’t need any more! Let’s go!” I could hear stifled giggles from all over the store. So I sent her back to her daddy with my own message. Sure enough, over the racks of shoes, I hear “That’s gonna cost you, daddy!” Indeed.
I am now that parent that lives in constant fear of what her child will say in front of other people. Now I get why my family was mortified when at the age of 3 I asked, in an elevator full of people, if the person standing next to me was a woman or a man. It was, in fact, a man—a biker man with long hair. You can see why I was confused! I guess the apple never really falls that far from the tree.