baby shoes rock.

Back when I didn't even like kids, I liked kid shoes.  I loved kid shoes.  I would walk past those little things and just swoooooooon.  Now that Patrick is taking some steps (!!!), it's time to get down to some serious shoe business.

I didn't start putting "real" shoes on Patrick until he was about 6 months old.  Before that, it was wintertime so we always covered his little socks with slippers.  I can't say enough about these that I got from Target - they were the perfect extra weight for (the few) outings we took.  And since it was such a mild winter, I only busted out the baby snowsuit once. 

circo baby slippers.

At the beginning of summer, I knew he needed a little something on his feet when we went out, even though he was just crawling. 



These were great for pool days.

Now as far as baby/kid shoes go, you could call me obsessed with Stride Rite.  My mom got that brand for us as kids, so I always knew I would try them out for my kids when I had them.  There is a store at Great Northern Mall, and I don't mind a 45-minute drive at all, so it will be my shoe shopping destination for all my children.

The thing I love about Stride Rite (for babies anyway) is that they have different stages of shoes.  They've got prewalkers, early walkers, and off & running.


This is the pair that Patrick has been wearing all summer.  They have been awesome for crawling as well as learning to walk behind the walker.  They are a size 3.5, and all of the sudden they were too small.

Today I went up to Stride Rite to look for a.) another pair of sandals to finish out the summer and b.) a pair of tennies for fall.


These are the sandals I ended up finding on clearance and they actually had them in his new size, a 4.  Stride Rite has a Sesame Street line that is precious, and Patrick got Grover on his new kicks.  On the website, it says that Grover is excitable, caring, and compuslsive.  Um, my child in three words?

We went outside to break them in.

boo boo on the nose.  fyi: not on my watch. 

Yep, you're thinking why is Patrick wearing socks?  The sales lady told me to put socks with the sandals the first couple weeks to soften the leather.  I can take advice.  Sometimes.

Here are Patrick's fall tennies.  They're still part of the 'early walker' stage; I don't see him being 'off & running' until at least spring...at least I hope!

They were running a special today...buy one, get one half off.  However, it didn't apply to clearance items, and the sandals were clearanced at $39.95, originally $46.00 (gee thanks for the discount).  The new shoes were cheaper, at $39.90.  Didn't make sense to me either...but the clerk ended up doing the BOGO so I was like now that's customer service.

As well as Stride Rite, I love the original Salt Water sandals.  These are my fave for when Pat gets a little older, maybe a couple summers into the future.