puma shoe

Friday was the first crisp and cool day of autumn that we have had. It was also the day that my 2-days shy of being 18 months old baby had her second favorite thing taken away from her. (first is her ratty pink elephant, “ellie”). Being without the bottle has brought about some pretty hefty withdrawals. The first morning she cried for an hour straight, rejecting the sippy cup with milk, showing lukewarm attention to the sippy cup with apple juice. Since her day had been so grief-stricken, I decided to be a good mom and let her walk to pick up big sis, instead of ride in the stroller.

We had a little extra time, so I put on her shoes, grabbed her beloved ellie and her toy stroller, and we were off. My baby happens to be an excellent walker/runner and is really great at keeping up, and loves walking. She loves the toy stroller as well. We set off to walk the 2 short blocks and 2 long blocks to the school, and the entire time she was little miss slow poke. I of course got so frustrated that I put myself in this situation, that I had to keep counting so that I didn’t get riled up. I finally put her toy stroller on top of my stroller and carried the baby on my shoulders, holding her feet with one hand, and pushing the stroller with the other.

After we picked up big sis, I decided lil sis would ride in the stroller on the way home, because of her slow-poked-ness. As I strapped her in I saw that she had lost a shoe. I looked all over the parking lot (where the pick up place is) and retraced my entire route, even though big sis had a playdate very close by. I went out of my way, and even retraced the jaywalking that I did, all in the name of finding the missing PUMA. Yup, that’s right, I wanted to find the missing puma shoe…because it’s a puma!

Only then did it strike me that maybe she had lost the puma shoe in her room before we even left! Maybe that is why she was walking so slowly, because the pavement was about 30 degrees and she only had a thin sock on one foot to protect her from the cold, not to mention the fact that it must have been terribly uneven walking with one socked foot and one puma foot for 2 short blocks and 2 long blocks.

We dropped big sis off at her playdate and by the time we got home, lil sis was out like a light in her stroller. I deposited her in her room, and as I left I saw the missing puma on the floor of her room. My suspicions had been confirmed, not a good mom after all. Thank goodness there wasn’t snow on the sidewalk.