Shoe fetish

13 months, 4 weeks

If you know Nick and I, you know it's no secret that we both LOVE shoes. Nick used to wait in line for HOURS for the newest pair of Jordans that came out. For a curvy girl like me, shoes are the only wardrobe necessity that always fit and look cute no matter what!

Knowing all of that, it shouldn't be surprising (yet somehow it still is) that Brock is OBSESSED with shoes. It started a couple of weeks ago when he first noticed the shoes in his closet. He quickly learned how to say 'shoes' and would start bringing them to us to put on his feet. And then it upgraded to wanting you to change the shoes already on his feet, to yet another pair he would bring to you. One night, I think we went through 3 pairs of shoes!

At first, we were hesitant to put them on very often since he was just really starting to walk at the time. He was still wobbly barefoot and we wanted him to really get comfortable walking before we threw shoes into the mix. Well, he mastered walking within a week or so and it just felt 'right' for him to have shoes. We were more comfortable letting him walk outside as he became more stable, so it was time to find him some shoes that fit! I bought a cheap little pair with soft soles from Target to get him used to walking with shoes on.

About a month ago, we had him measured and he was a 4. Most of the shoes we already had were either too big or too small. Now that he's a walking machine and wants his shoes on all the time, we decided he needed a pair to wear to daycare each day so we hit the mall last night to find him a new pair of kicks.

Little did we know the shoe fetish would be in full force! We stopped at a couple of shoe stores and he was in HEAVEN!! He would see walls of shoes and just say 'shoes? shoes? shoes?'. We'd pick up a pair and inspect them and if they weren't put on his feet, he was NOT a happy camper!!

We had his feet measured again and he was at a solid size 5. Yes, you're reading that right, in less than a month, his feet grew at least an entire shoe size (so we thought). We found a pair we liked and handed them to the store clerk to get his size. Cue the meltdown about taking the shoes away from him! When the clerk came back with the shoes, the size 5 was almost too small so we had to go with a size 6! Brock was so excited about his 'new' shoes, he was pointing to his old shoes to be taken off and holding his new ones up to be put on. He even puts his foot in the air so you can put his shoes on.

I know he may not always love to have shoes on, and quite frankly we're pretty shocked he has this great love of them as he was a sock removing ninja last winter, but it's the cutest little phase. He was so proud of his new shoes last night, we let him wear them out of the store. It was a little later in the evening and the mall was pretty quiet so we let him walk by himself down the mall. You could tell he felt so proud of his new shoes and so independent to be walking on his own! We even took him to Build A Bear and got a little bear made for him. I swear, he was more excited about the shoes than the bear!! 


In other news - we had our first little 'bout of pink eye this weekend. As usual, he was a total champ about it. Never got fussy or upset. However, he HATES the eye drops we have to give him. Seriously - who knew kids eye muscles were so strong? Once he clamps them shut, it takes all my strength to pry them open! We took him to the Children's Mercy Urgent care on Saturday night and in true Barbosa form, they recognized us from the last time we were there! In our defense, we've only been there twice and both times were AFTER his first birthday. 


I feel like I say this in every blog, but this kid's vocabulary is crazy! He repeats so much and easily says more than most kids at this age. I would say we are easily over 30 words at this point.


We also now have 4.5 teeth! Both front top and bottom teeth and as of yesterday, one of the top side teeth is poking through.