Shoetopia

I remember the first time I went into a DSW Shoe Warehouse. My mom and I had discovered one in New Jersey years ago. I had never seen so many wonderful pairs of shoes all lined up, just waiting for me to consider each and every one. There were shoes of every kind; dressy, flats, boots, flip-flops, sneakers, slip-on, wedges, stilleto, formal, casual and so forth.

With the warmer weather now finally upon us, I decided to spruce up my sandal wearing choices and head to DSW one morning while Ian was in school. I had Samantha with me and this was going to be her first visit, old enough to be aware of what is going on. We park the car and I put Samantha in the stroller, hoping to be able to cruise through the aisles with minimum disruptions. The minute we walked through the doors, I realized I was in trouble and truly had a mini-me on my hands. Sam's eyes got as big as saucers when she saw where we were headed. She instantly put her hands to the shoes on her own two feet and started to take them off. She had big plans to try on all these shoes laid out in front of her!! I quickly tharwted the ideas in her head and told her we were here for me. She put her feet back down and hopped out of the stroller. She made a beeline for the first set of shoes she could run to and promptly handed me a pair to try on. It was absolutely adorable. I started tearing up, right there in the store at how much she was enjoying shoe shopping with me.

I took Sam to the back of the store and we did a quick run thru of the clearance section. It was here that Sam couldn't resist it a moment longer and started trying on some shoes herself. Of course they were 10 times too big for her, but it made it easier for her to not have to take her own pair of shoes off. A woman next to us saw Sam and commented, "She is starting young." Ha! You have no idea.

Once we made our way out of the clearance section, it was at this time that Sam noticed each of the little benches you sit on to try shoes had a mirror on it. She got such a kick going from bench to bench checking out her reflection.

While I didn't need the stroller; it was quite foolish of me to think that Sam would be content sitting in it admist this shoetopia, we did put it to good use and had it hold the boxes of shoes we were deciding on.