(Sung to the tune of I’ve Got Spurs that Jingle, Jangle, Jingle.)

Note: The actual color of these shoes is about a bazillion times more vibrant than what you see in the photos.  A. bazillion. times. brighter!!!!

Anna Grace started getting a little allowance a few weeks ago.  I made up 2 chore charts.  One is a chart of things she has to do just because she exists in this house.  No money is exchanged for this. You’re a family member, we own a dog, here are your jobs.  They include things like making her bed, feeding the dog, picking up her laundry, cleaning up her room.

I then made a second chart.  The optional chart.  (Although I don’t usually allow her to get away with not doing them.  I’m a taskmaster!).  These chores are things like clean a sink, help mom fold laundry, wipe off the table, etc. and they have an amount of money attached to them.  You do the chore for the week, you get the cash.

She’s been stashing the cash.

Anna Grace… Wearing an Ensemble She Put Together Herself

 

(Can ya tell??)

 

Meanwhile there have been birthdays and holidays and with birthdays and holidays come cash.

She’s been stashing the cash.

And at the same time, my dad’s fiance always thinks of Anna Grace and sends her little cards.  AG loves this.  And sometimes, there’s some money in the card and AG is just thrilled to not only have mail but to see the “paper money”.

She’s been stashing the cash.

The Shoes

This past Saturday, AG decided to check and see how much money she had in her piggy bank.  That child had stashed 83 bucks and that’s not counting the change.  She wanted to go shopping and we made a plan to do that later.  Because… we had a more pressing issue.  AG outgrew her tennis shoes, she has a field trip scheduled to a bowling alley and the instructions say she has to wear tennis shoes.  So off we headed to Kohls.

There’s something you should know about me.  There are a few things (just a few) that I absolutely despise.  Cartoon characters on clothes are on that list and it is a battle I usually lose.  Cartoon characters etc on shoes… I’m gonna win.  I hate that kind of thing.  I also hate light up shoes.  Hatehatehate. AG has only had 1 pair of light up shoes and my mother (!!!!) sent those to her.  I know, I’m a horrible mother because I prefer nice, basic shoes.  Sue me!

 

So we’re at Kohls and I find a nice pair of Nikes.  A nice, basic pair of Nikes.  A nice, basic pair of ON SALE Nikes.  I also let AG try on some of the Skechers that have all the crazy colors and I was even willing to buy her a pair of Converse in some crazy color.  (I’m not totally cruel, just slightly.)  But then there was this fateful moment.  A moment when I picked up a Skecher that had a bazillion colors and glitter and neon and… I dropped it on the ground.  And when the shoe landed a horrible thing occurred.

The shoe lit up.

That was all she wrote.  From that moment forward, AG complained about every single shoe I asked her to try on.  It’s too big, it makes my feet itch (a frequent complaint she has about tennis shoes), it smells funny (not kidding!) and no shoe was right except that for THAT shoe.  I did happen to know that the nice basic pair of Nikes fit just fine but she would have none of it.

And then Dana had an idea.

He told AG that mommy is pretty set on getting a regular pair of shoes and if AG would like the light up shoes (which cost twice as much as the pair of “nice, basic Nikes!!!!!) that maybe she could buy them with her own money.  I didn’t think AG would go for this but she jumped at the chance.  That kid forked over more than half of her stashed cash for those shoes and she is wearing them EVERYWHERE.

 

The Shoes in Action

 

And ya know what?  She won me over.  Believe it or not, those crazy shoes are considered okay for her school uniform and she looks so cute wearing them with her uber straight-laced uniform.  Mom’s a believer.  Multicolored crazy shoes are, actually, pretty cool.  (Note that I still make no concession about crazy shoes that LIGHT UP.  Some things will never change!)