Silly Shoes

I have been very, very fortunate to be the beneficiary of an extremely large collection of baby and toddler clothes, socks, shoes, etc that have descended from a long line of wonderful cousins. And when I say large, I mean large. My cousin (the one that was the latest possessor of and greatest contributor to the collection) delivered me the first of several loads of clothes on my due date for Ali. Here is a picture of me sorting them:
WOW I was pregnant.

Anyway.

I have used these clothes well. At times, they made up most of Ali’s wardrobe. They’ve been great! I SO appreciate it. And we’re still growing into some of them!!

On Saturday I was looking through the shoes that Ali had not yet grown into for a pair of tennishoes. I found them, and I also found this pair of boots:
I remembered seeing them a while back when I had sorted the clothes – specifically I remember being puzzled. They were brand new – the soles weren’t scuffed a bit – name brand boots (Kenneth Cole, for those of you wondering). First of all, I didn’t even know that Kenneth Cole made toddler boots. Second of all, I was wondering why someone in the line of these hand-me-downs had bought name brand boots and then never used them.

I soon found out.

So, although I wasn’t completely sold on their practicality or even style (sure, on a 20 year old they would look fine, but on a 20 month old?), but I was too curious NOT to at least try them on Ali.

She was quite confused as to what I was doing – why I was stuffing her foot and her leg down in big, long, thick black things. And here is what I learned about these boots (and why they were never worn):

1. The leather was as tough as . . . well, very tough leather. Like the leather that they make motorcycle knapsacks out of. Or men’s work boots. No softness at all. There was NO way her ankle was bending in those shoes.
2. They came halfway up her knee. So there was going to be no ankle OR knee moving happening here.
3. Despite the fact that they were three shoe sizes too big, they were so tight on her calves that I had to pull them together to zip them, and to which Ali immediately started protesting, “toooo tight!!! toooo tight!!!!” (and for the record, Ali does not have fat calves)

They ended up looking like leg braces for the poor child. It cracked me up!!

Err. . . she wasn’t quite as amused.

Here she is, examining her braces (I love how it makes her feet pigeon-toed):
“trying. . . to. . . lift. . . my. . . legs. . .”“Mom, are you KIDDING me?!?!?!”
So, Ali named these boots “silly shoes”. Whenever she sees them, she points at them and excitedly say “silly shoes!!”, but when I ask her if she wants to wear them, she vehemently shakes her head and says, “all DONE silly shoes!!!!”

Update: We went to the mall today (two days after Ali’s experience with these shoes), and every time we passed a shoe display with boots, Ali pointed and said, “SILLY SHOES!!!”