She Doesn't Like Change

I absolutely, positively, unconditionally, passionately loathe taking my children shopping. I hate it. And I had to do it yesterday. They needed shoes, and since the daycare won't let me send them to school with bare feet (hey, we live in Florida! Why not?), I bit the bullet and went to the outlets.

Between trying to maneuver Chay's stroller around the crowded (and disorganized) Stride Rite store and keeping track of Ray as she takes her shoes off and throws them away (because, after all, we are buying her NEW shoes), I decided that I was going to find her a cool pair of shoes that didn't involve velcro and were a color other than plain white.

I tried to convince her to get these:
She didn't like those. "These are too big and I am too little".

She didn't like these either:
How about the little black pair:

Nope.

After trying on about 17 pairs of shoes, she finally settled on the same damn pair of shoes she has been wearing since she started walking (and look amazingly like the ones she just tried to throw away):

"These are beautiful," Ray declared. They may not be different but at least they're clean.