We went shoe shopping for Lilli yesterday. I generally let Lilli go barefoot, because if I put socks on her she just ends up kicking them off anyway, but when I take her out I have the sneaking suspicion that people think I'm a bad mother for letting her go shoeless and sockless. And with winter approaching I thought the strength of their imagined or unimagined moral reproach might be too much for me, so I thought we'd better invest in some shoes. Do you have any idea how much baby shoes cost? There are cheap ones out there, but for kids who are really going to use them to stand on and stuff, they're EXPENSIVE. We went to Stride Rite and the pair I wanted for Lilli were $41. $41 for a pair of tiny little baby shoes!! I couldn't bring myself to do it, because I wanted them to last to when she starts walking if I'm going to pay that much, and who knows how big her feet will be when she starts to walk. They are already a size 5 and the salesperson informed me that Lilli's feet are very wide (he seemed to be insinuating that I had birthed a bigfoot) so that seems to me that her feet will only keep growing. Plus, I was so totally off the mark on when she was going to start crawling, who knows when she'll start walking.

Anyway, I found some other soft soled shoes that can also be worn as slippers that were about half the price and way cuter. The problem was: they were half the price and way cuter! That tempted me to buy two pair! BUT, I resisted. It took quite a bit of willpower however. Because I only bought the one pair I had to buy white so they could go with everything. If I had bought two pair, I could have bought a pink pair with any combination of cute decorations (fuzzy animals, ribbons, hearts, etc.) and a blue pair too! But no, twas not to be. Just a plain old serviceable white pair that will go with anything. I'm just hoping she won't kick these off too. Maybe, if she likes them, I'll buy her another pair :). ha ha ha

Plus, I did buy her a pair of baby keds at a used store. I don't even count that though. They were only $5. I could have bought eight pair for the price of those Stride Rites!

In other news, Lilli is just getting so smart. I know I have been particularly and obscenely full of pride lately, but she just keeps learning new things! And she's been so cute and lovable. I love it when she is so full of joy that she just starts wiggling and smiling and squints her eyes and laughs out loud. I don't know if you all realize what restraint I exercise in my blogs. I could go on and on and on and on. You think I'm longwinded! You don't know my potential! Well, to practice restraint, I will stop for now, but let you all be warned, I'm saving it up. . .