New shoes

Along with Kalina comes many rules. No cats playing with her toys. No one leaves the bathtub until all the water is out. Hands must be in her lap when we close the car door (so her fingers don't end up pinched somewhere), or we have to open the door and close it again so that she can put her hands in her lap.

Some of these may have begun as our rules, but Kalina has embraced them fully. She's an orderly little soul. We've actually had to curb the picking up of toys before naptime, for instance, as it occasionally gets out of hand. (We can't believe we've ever uttered the words "No more picking up, it's naptime!" for instance.)

Kalina occasionally plays these like trump cards--there are only so many things we're willing to battle over--and we almost always give in. She seems so emotionally connected to having her ducks in a row, and these aren't really a big deal.

Regarding shoes, her rules are: No wearing shoes in the house. Shoes must be properly fastened at all times while on her feet. No new shoes.

The problem being, of course, that shoes wear out or get grown out of or, by golly, Mommy just really doesn't want you wearing your scuffed pink play shoes with your fancy blue dress so we're going to try the nice brown or white shoes today instead (I've recently given up this battle--the pink shoes go to church, now, too, because wearing a dress in the first place is the new battle. This is why I'm glad to have another girl--maybe she'll wear dresses.).

And then we have to violate the third rule of shoes, and it's stressful for us all until Kalina has finally married the new pair of shoes and we can quit worrying about shoes for a good 5 months.

Over the summer, for example, Kalina's play shoes were falling apart. We visited our local Target to pick out some new ones. As I ogled the lovely variety of adorable toddler shoes, Kalina found her current shoe, on clearance. We soon located the right size. Proud of my little shopper, I admit I was a bit disappointed not to get a change of toddler foot scenery.

More recently, it's come time to find some fall/winter shoes in a size 7, and to develop a strategy for transitioning Kalina into them.

I first begin mentioning to the girl that soon she'll need new shoes, for size, weather, and the fact that her old ones are becoming indescribably yucky, especially after stomping in the puddles from last week's rainstorms. Both pairs. "No," she decides. I remind her that she hated her old shoes at first, too. She doesn't respond, except probably to remind me about the fox Daddy saw that one time in the woods (her favorite story lately).

And then I scope out the selection. All but one pair of reasonably priced shoes either sport princesses (that Kalina doesn't know) or is a scaled-down model of what high schoolers are wearing, so our only choice was Target's usual "fairly cute yet generic athleisure shoe suitable for the season." Just like the summer shoe, only more enclosed.

In a moment of brilliance, I had Aunt Nancy pick them up at the store for me and drop them off. I made a big deal out of the fact that Aunt Nancy had brought the shoes. Would this make the difference? Would she cooperate better for someone who wasn't Mommy? I'll take any advantage I can get.

The problem with trying clothes on Kalina is that she hates tags, with a passion, to the point of frantic tears even if she sees tags on clothing that Matt or I are trying on. So new clothes are always a gamble--you want to make sure Kalina will actually wear the clothes before taking the tag off, but you can't really make sure she'll actually wear it until you've taken the tag off because it would be cruel to force tagged clothing onto a hysterical child.

So on Friday evening before our usual neighborhood walk, we made a big deal about taking the shoes out of their box and showing them to Kalina. We held our breath as we asked something like: "Here are the new shoes that Aunt Nancy brought you! Aren't they nice? I wish I had new shoes! Look how pretty they are! You need new shoes, remember? Aren't your toes kind of pinching in your old ones? [a nod] How about these?"

Joy of all joys, the toddler agreed to give them a shot. But I knew we weren't out of the woods yet. I sent Matt off to snip the tags before Kalina could change her mind. We then convinced her to wear socks, "since the weather's getting cooler--now you can wear your cat shirt and your fish shirt and your dog shirt because the weather is cooler, which is why you need to wear socks, too!" (more holding of breath)

Assent. We slipped on the shoes and the socks and pulled Kalina to her feet and...

"Not the new shoes!"

There it was. The toddler spirit rising up against change, clearly outraged that she had let it get this far. I'd heard this chant before, as I was introducing her second identical summer pair--a switch that had been quite stressful in its time.

Then Daddy had a brilliant idea: "How about Daddy carries you?" And we got the girl out the door, where I would put the second part of my plan to work.

After a few minutes of walking, by which I mean each one of us carrying one kid, we came across the motivation I knew Kalina needed to make her shoes her own. Fortunately, I've learned it only takes a few dozen steps for Kalina to turn new shoes into old favorites. And there was a sewer drain a few dozen steps away, and a plethora of rocks to toss into it. "You can throw rocks into that sewer drain," I tempted the child, "but you'll have to walk over there yourself."

At the suggestion, Kalina warily gave it a shot. She needed picked up once or twice on the way, and stumbled slightly--off balance from the new shoes, no doubt--as she tossed her first rock in. And then another, and then another. I knew we'd be okay.

Sure, the girl still needed to be carried occasionally on the way back home. And yes, she did seem a bit relieved to take the foreign objects off of her feet once inside. But the new shoes had walked their way into her heart.

This was confirmed for me the next day, when she actually asked to wear the new shoes as we were headed out the door for some family fun.

Glad that's over for the season. Next challenge: Finding a Christmas dress that matches her pink, white and blue sneakers.

Photo: Kalina in her "airplane" with her "suitcase," loaded full of animals, of course (because what else would you bring on a long trip?).