When Did You Grow?

Several weeks ago I went to MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers, i.e. life-line to adult interaction, morning to eat my breakfast without snitchers, validation station of all things mommy ... you get the picture).  For a few meetings our group had a swap-meet of sorts.  We could bring in our pre-loved baby clothes, kid equipment, maternity tents :) etc. and trade them for other things we might need that someone else wanted to get out of their house.  I hefted a couple of bags of clothes, books and baby paraphernalia in to the meeting and came out with three pairs of little girl shoes.  A perfect trade!

Little Ashley is now proudly sporting a pair of wanna-be Birkenstocks and she loves them.  In fact, it's entirely possible that she is still wearing them right now as she naps.  I can only imagine the stinky toe-ness that is fermenting in those cute, little, leather clogs.  I guess when she's done with them we can either fumigate them or burn them ... depending on how much tread they still have on the bottom.

The other two pairs of shoes I got for Lydia.  They were cute.  They were girly.  They were perfect for a pixy girl who lately has been wearing black PowerRanger snow boots or a pair of brown little faux-letter boots of which she has worn the toes right off.  Girly & Cute verses Black & Brown & Broken ... it's a no-brainer.  I checked the sizes and decided that while it was possible that they would be too big for her right now, her feet are guaranteed to grow.  Most likely by this summer they would be a perfect fit.

When we got home, before we even hung up our coats, the girls were trying on their shoes.  They get that from me. :)  I want to wear/try-out/play with anything new immediately.  Ashley actually had one clog on before we even got out of the van.  I had to encourage her to at least make it to the living room before getting the other one on.  She was thrilled and as I said earlier, she has worn them ever since.

Lydia still needs help getting her pudgy toes into her shoes so she walked around behind me as I unpacked a few things from the van ... pounding me on the legs with her new shoes and shouting, "Ma ... too ... Ma ... too!"  Translated:  "Mom, I want to wear my shoes, too!  Can't you go potty later?"  Finally I was finished with all my important business and plopped down on the stair next to Liddy.  She had the little pair of pink tennis-shoes in her hand and she was sticking her cutsy foot in my face ... just in case I didn't know where the shoes should go.  I pulled back the velcro and started to slide the shoe on her foot.  And that was it ... I managed to get three inches of her foot into the shoe.  What's the deal?  I checked inside the shoe to make sure she hadn't stuffed her socks in there.  Nope.  Empty.  Hmm ... I tried again.  No such luck.  I then did the mommy-trick of putting the sole of the shoe against the bottom of her foot ... only to discover that her little piggies would NEVER fit in this shoe.  When did she grow so much?!?

Dumbfounded, I set that pair aside pulled out the second pair of freebie shoes.  The sparkly gold sandals.  I undid the velcro strap on the back and literally stuffed her chubby feet into the shoes.  I wriggle the straps around to make sure that all her toes were still together (nothing worse than the baby piggy getting separated from the rest of the bunch!) and then just barely managed to pull the velcro strap back around.  She smiled.  She stood up.  She strutted away.  And I watched as her adorable little toesies stuck out over the edges of the shoes.

I was flabbergasted!  How did I miss out on her growing two entire shoe sizes?  Even being home with her 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year ... she's still growing up faster than I can keep up!  And it's hard on my mommy-heart.
This is my baby and before my eyes
... she's growing out of the shoes that I thought would be too big,
... she's talking/yelling more than she did last week,
... she's wearing capris that used to be pants,
... she's "reading" books that she used to just chew on,
 ...sigh...

It's bound to happen ... but I'm still not used to the idea of itty-bitty Liddy being big.