If the shoe fits

I was going to whine self-indulgently about my fat again, but it didn’t rate terribly well yesterday (what’s wrong with you people?) so I’ve made a commercial decision to save the angst for later. Next best thing? Ranting about the Sprogs. Alrighty then … shoes and Sprog 2 … don’t get me started. Actually, do get me started, or else I won’t have anything to blog about today. I just returned a pair of Clarks trainers I bought for Sprog 2. Normally I’d have held onto them, in the vain hope she’d one day agree to wear the bloody things. Eventually, six months later, I’d admit defeat and pass them on to her smaller-footed cousin. But not this time. This time there was some shouty mummy action. They were the sneakers that broke my long-suffering back. It may have had something to do with spending a very, very long time at a store having Sprog 2 correctly fitted for her new school shoes and sport shoes. That way – I thought – she wouldn’t be able to complain about them “not feeling right”. Sprog 2 has chubby little feet and hasn’t mastered tying her shoelaces yet, so there were only two shoe styles in the whole store that fitted the bill. The first pair were rejected as being “too loose”, the second were grudgingly accepted as “ok”. Until she got home and showed Daddy and proceeded to explain to him that she was putting them away until she “grew into them”. WHAT? White hot rage obscured my vision momentarily. Then I roared. Sprog 2 started crying because mummy was angry and that made me roar even more. “Of course I’m angry! I buy you all these shoes and you never wear them! You were in the shop with me today! You told the man they felt ok! You wasted my time! You wasted his time! Arrrrrrggghhhhhhh!” It’s impossible to predict when a pair of shoes with be accepted into Sprog 2’s wardrobe (and heart). She fell in love with a bronze pair of Gisele Bunchen thongy ones during the school shoe shopping expedition and hasn’t had them off her feet since. But every other damn shoe is either the wrong colour, the wrong size or gives her blisters. Even when I think I’m on a winner – sparkly pink, blue and orange Sketchers I got her in Hawaii, with silver laces and studs that FLASHED all over them, I mean, how could I fail with those? But no, Sprog 2 took one look, gave this little “you’ve got to be kidding me” laugh, and refused to wear them. I eventually convinced her to wear them to dinner one night. Adults fell over themselves to compliment her and express the desire to have their own pair. Being highly susceptible to wide-scale attention, Sprog 2 finally started wearing “the flashing shoes”, but only at night, so they attracted maximum adoration. As for her recently-returned sport shoes, I’m going to make her wear her grotty old ones to school. That’ll teach her a lesson. And I’m hoping Sprog 1 swans around in her glamorous new shoes boasting about them a lot – something I would normally frown upon – just to teach her a lesson.

TONIGHT’S MENU: Gordon Ramsay’s miso salmon with pak choy. I’m having a bit of a Gordon Ramsay festival at the moment.