Shoe shopping

Rehm and Charlotte both needed new sneakers.  Both were still wearing the pair purchased at the beginning of the school year.  They were looking really ratty and Rehm's were getting too small to boot.

Michael was out of town this weekend for work.  So after three ball games (two basketball and one soccer) and an end of season party, I thought it would be a great idea to take all four kids to Academy to pick up undershirts for softball and shoes for the older two.  I thought it would take us an hour tops and then we could come home and have a bit of free time.

The shirt shopping went great.  Found the right colors and sizes with no problems.  Charlotte quickly narrowed her shoe choices down to two. 










And then rather quickly chose the bottom pair.  Is it bad that when she got to the final two pair I told her that if she really loved them equally to please pick the black ones because they were $15 cheaper?  I did go on to say that if she really loved the blue/orange pair that I was completely fine with getting them.

In fact, I'm kind of sad she didn't pick the blue/orange pair.  I liked them better.  I think I'm just getting tired of the sketchers look.  That is all the girls have seemed to wear for over a year now.  I think I got excited over the prospect of seeing something a bit different.

Then I went to help Rehm.  Who I had sent off to the men's department with a size and a budget when Charlotte and I started looking for shoes.  He had found a shoe he loved.

But they didn't have it in his size (9).  They had the exact shoe but different color scheme in his size but not the blue and yellow ones.  I had them call other stores.  No one had it.  I looked online.  I couldn't find his size.  We looked at every shoe below $85 in the store.  None were as comfortable as the one he loved.  We found a slightly different shoe, right color combo, right sole, right brand but he didn't like the design on the side of the shoe as much.

 Finally after being in Academy for over two hours I told him he had to pick one of these...




Or if we left with nothing he and his dad would be going shoe shopping after his dad got back in town.  I was not taking him back.  He chose the red/black that were the same model, just wrong color scheme.  We left.  He was fighting back tears.  He really wanted the other color scheme. 

By this point it was 5:15.  I asked what the kids wanted for dinner because at this point I wasn't cooking.  The consensus was Sonic.  While sitting at Sonic waiting for food, I told Rehm we could go to the other Academy and make sure they really didn't have The Shoes.

We get to the other store.  They have them in a 9.5 but not 9.  He tries on the one they had - the second shoe was the display and attached to the shelf.  It fit.  Before finding a person to get the display loose, I handed him the 10 and asked him to try them on just to see if they would work.  He tried them on.  They had plenty of growing room but fit fine.  He ran a lap around the shoe department.  They felt good.  So we exchanged the red/black ones for these.







And then I found this picture from the first shoe store from about 2:45 that afternoon.  Yep, the first Academy had a size 10 in the shoe he loved all along.  But for some reason at that store he refused to even try it on because he knew it would be too big!




On the way home completely without prompting he said, "Mom, thank you so much for helping me find my shoes!  I really love them."  And that made the 4.5 hours of shoe shopping and tears all worth while.  I did take that opportunity to tell him he also needed to thank his sisters because they had been really understanding and well-behaved through the entire shoe shopping ordeal.

If you see my son in his new shoes, please compliment him on his awesome shoes.

While trying to get him to pick a pair of shoes I spotted these.  I need some new sneakers.  What do you think?





Jenn- Posted from my iPhone