First of all, who thought it was a good idea to connect new shoes (especially kid shoes) to one another in the box? I mean, I get the whole “keep ’em together” idea, but it’s impossible to walk in them that way – unless you happen to have prior experience in the prison system for a violent crime. And anyway, wouldn’t it reduce returns if you could always, say, try the shoes on right there in the store and walk in them? Clearly, no one asked me.

As an adult, you just live with these things. Maybe you question, but mostly you just grumble, shake your head and get over it. When you have a kid and everything gets a little more “challenging”, these sorts of decisions seem really really poorly thought out. Makes me want to write a letter (is this a letter?) to someone.

But I digress. I’ve learned one thing as a parent (often the hard way) that seems to help: IMPROVISE.

And so, when we took Zoe to try on shoes at our local Target store, we just found 2 identical pair and put one of each set on each foot. Take that, you dummy shoe connector people. HA!

Speaking of shoes, if anyone has suggestions on how the heck to know (other than blisters) that a baby’s shoe fits correctly, please share. So far, we’ve gone with the “can she walk in them and are there visible signs of pain?” method, but surely there’s a better way. In fact, we’ll take all the shoe advice we can get. And in the meantime, we’ll keep buying shoes that happen to have 2 identical pair in stock…