I mentioned in passing that one of the requirements of a Girls Day Out with Alexis is a stop at the shoe store. The past Saturday, unfortunately, I held to that requirement. I should know better.

As we were traveling out and about, one of my missions was to stop at a particular Gap. It's time to start combing the clearance racks for fall clothes and the Gap at the Waterfront in Pittsburgh is usually the best for finding lots of good girls' stuff marked down to nothing. Unfortunately, we girls were a bit overzealous in some of our other shopping and ended up not being able to fall into the Gap until about 8:30.

You would think that by 8:30, the Toddler would be starting to drag. I mean, her tiny little legs had carried her all over the place, usually jumping the whole way since she seems to have sprouted a Tigger *bounce, bounce, bounce* complex lately. But no, she was all systems go when I pulled into the only parking space at the Waterfront, the one right in front of a shoe store. That was my first mistake. Never park in front of a shoe store if Alexis is with you, unless you have a few hours to spare.

The second she saw the store, she was all, "I try on shoes." I was all, "Let's not." Yeah, cause that works. So in we went and she darted her way back to the rear of the store. Apparently we're in shoes stores too much because she knows that is where the Dora shoes are. She instantly found a pair of tacky tennis shoes sporting the Latina Whore and plopped her hiney down on a bench to try them on. Then she darted off to find some Diego shoes, plopped her hiney down, and tried them on. Next was the Tinkerbell shoes. Then was the hooker boots. She tried on Crocs. She tried on light-up shoes. She tried on sandals. There were boys shoes. There were girls shoes. There were my shoes. There were shoes. Lots and lots of shoes.

About twenty minutes into shoe-a-palooza, I started to lose my cool. I tried convincing the kid that there was no point in trying on a particular pair. "They're too big" I said. "No, they're not," she replied, despite the fact that Kareem Abdul Jabar would obviously have better luck walking in the pair she had at the time. I tried telling her a pair was too small. "No, they're not," she replied in a tone that implied that I was the biggest moron of all time.

If I could have just laid down on the bench and taken a nap while she tried on every pair of shoes in the place, we would have been fine. As it was, I just stayed awake. And snippy. Alexis was oblivious to my commentary since she was in Shoe Heaven, but I'm sure the women perusing the nearby clearance shoes thought I was awful. I wanted to say, "Yeah well, you try raising Imelda Marcos and see how much you love hanging out in shoe stores," but I just kept quiet through the glares.

Finally, at 9:15, I ended up dragging the Shoe Princess out of the store, kicking and screaming. Thank goodness for the fit she threw, though, because when we dashed over to the Gap and she neededwantedhadtohave a pair of pink flip-flops? I at least had a semi-valid excuse to shoot her down.

For what it's worth, I wear three pairs of shoes. Total. I wear one pair of black semi-dressy shoes 90% of the time, with the very occasional need for tennis shoes or sandals. I am NOT a shoe whore.

So how is it that I'm raising one?

BTW, I'm raising a shoe whore who LOVES her frog boots and is very capable of striking a pose while wearing them.