Faster and Higher

Casey received a Stride Rite gift certificate from his birth family not too long ago. Casey was a little pidgeon-toed when he was younger. And he walked on his toes. He wore one of those braces at bedtime for almost a year. It's a distant memory now, but I hated putting it on him at the time. The pediatric orthopedist who saw us told us that wearing properly fitted shoes was really important for Casey. And that he was less in-toed with shoes on than off, which is unusual. But we followed the doctor's instructions. And spent more money on his shoes than our own.

If you've followed the story of Casey for any time, you know that he's got a bit of a shoe fetish, though I don't think fetish is quite the right word for it. The boy has probably 5 or 6 pairs of shoes. He loves them. We always try to buy him at least one decent pair. And by decent, I mean Stride Rite. They are so pricey, but they last forever, and the people there make sure the shoes fit correctly. Don't get me wrong, I love Target for character shoes just as much as the next guy. But they aren't the best things for kids' feet. And yet we can't get Casey to wear his good shoes all that often.

Last week he wore an old pair of Cars shoes. Old enough that the toe was all scuffed and the velcro piece had been re-stapled together more times than I can count. When he came home from school, he announced, "These shoes are broken. I need new shoes." Of course we'd been telling him the shoes were broken for months and begging him to get rid of them. I guess his teacher's opinion is more valid or more important than ours when it comes to shoes. But we sure didn't argue.

We headed straight to Stride Rite to try on some good shoes, which we purchased with the gift certificate from Grandma Linda and Papaw Jim and Haley and Bryce (Casey's siblings). Here are some photos of our adventure:



Casey tells me he runs faster and jumps higher in these shoes. I almost believe him.