Stolen: Velcro Sneakers

As you probably already know, both of my boys were born with big feet. So much so that Sung used to say Oalin had feet like the characters in Lord of the Rings. Halflings, maybe? Recently, I put Oalin's sneakers on his feet after a long summer hiatus only to find him spicy and resistant to wearing them. Only after I saw him walking awkwardly did it finally dawn on me that perhaps they were too small. Indeed, they were much too small.
Today, we journeyed to the mall in search of the perfect sneaker. The last time I bought Oalin sneakers it took us almost an hour to find them because he wanted "red ones" and nothing else. Our first stop was a running store. After measuring his feet, the woman said, "He's an 11." Eleven? Gosh that sounds big. "So, we can choose from any of these shoes?" I ask, pointing to the children's section. "Oh, no. They don't go up that high. He's over here." As she points to the Big Kid Section! I nearly fell down. How could this be? He does have big feet, but he's only 2! The sneakers looked so big. So grown up. They had, dare I say it, laces! Real, big boy, laces! Oalin tried a couple on, but I felt so sad looking at them. I know they are just sneakers, but in my eyes someone had come from behind me and stolen my sons world of Velcro sneakers. The ones that made his smile light up just as bright as the lights on the sneakers themselves. The ones that seemed to scream,"I'm the happiest little boy in the whole world!" These sneakers with the... laces... were much, much too sophisticated for my... baby! Weren't they? So we left. We went to our old faithful, Stride Rite, and immediately both of our eyes landed on the perfect pair of little boy sneakers. Monster trucks that would light up when he walked with Velcro and not laces. He could hardly wait for the sales woman to come back with his size. "I'll just take these." He repeatedly said as he insistently took them off of the shelf. Having gone into the store with sandals the woman had put those silly, old-woman-looking, peds, on his feet before she tried the sneakers on him. Need I say, those silly "stockings" are now sitting on Oalin's bedroom floor because he absolutely had to wear his Monster Truck shoes home. I may have bought Monster Truck shoes, but bigger than that, I realized that I needed to hold on a little tighter, as if I were Velcro, to Oalin and Kheenan's childhood. In the blink of an eye, it truly just.........