Shoe Gods - Hear My Plea

I have just spent the longest evening of my life, dragging my three kids around through crowded parking lots in the pouring rain in the quest for new shoes for Bella. It turns out that there are these magical cut-off sizes in the children's clothing world that the children's fashion overlords have decided are the end of the line. I struggled with this when Bella turned four and most of the clothes became slutty. I just couldn't understand who had decided that the bare-belly Britney Spears look was appropriate for a preschooler. And now I seem to have hit the same wall with shoes.

When we walked into Stride Rite, I thought we were all set. We would select a couple of pairs both Bella and I agreed were cute and functional off the wall and we would walk out of the store fifteen to thirty minutes later, ready to head on home to play. We picked up shoe after shoe after shoe, and all of them went up to size 12. I found four pairs in the entire store that came in her size, and needless to say, none of them were deemed "pretty" by Bella.

So we headed over to Macy's, thinking we would have more luck in their children's shoe department. We trekked all the way to the other side of the mall, rode up three elevators (always a difficult feat when you only have two hands and all three kids are nervous),and discovered that our Macy's does not carry children's shoes.

Shopping for shoes was so fun when Bella was little and it's still so fun now for Juliette. I can't get enough of the little girl shoes: like the Suri ladybug shoes that Oprah commented on. Juliette is all about shiny patent leather right now and I'm happy to indulge her because she looks so cute even when she wears sweats. The right shoes just make the outfit. Which is why I'm so frustrated by the lack of shoes for the elementary school set.

I refuse to get her Crocs or Uggs. I don't think she'll be able to walk and run in them and I worry that she won't go back to regular shoes after wearing something so comfortable. Plus there's the issue of cost with Uggs - I can't justify spending $80 or $90 on a pair of shoes that she could outgrow within the season.

We finally got lucky at Kids Sports Locker where we scored a pair of pink converse sneakers which were still feminine and cute even though they are sneakers. But I really think there's a product gap here - so if anyone out there is a shoe designer or have any connections in shoe sales - if you could find me some cute girl shoes in a size 1 or 13 1/2 - you would have found yourself a new very loyal customer.