This weekend revolved around surprising Adelaide with a new pair of Skechers. I say that it revolved around it because we drove around everywhere looking for the right size and every store seemed to be out of it.
As some of you know, I had a baby 4 weeks ago. Well, I happened to have my first postpartum breakdown during the whole process of finding these shoes. I was a complete mess beginning Friday and it extended through the majority of Saturday. Everything ticked me off, I mean everything. Now, I am completely aware of how petty most of the things are that irritated me. I know that the things that bugged me would not usually bug me under normal circumstances.
One of these things happened to be those stinking shoes. I must first state that I hate Skechers with a passion. I think they are the tackiest shoes around, especially for little girls. And of course Adelaide wanted the pair I hated most, the ones with graffiti, glitter, and they light up. Normally I would buy them for her and know how awesome I am because she loves them and now she really loves me because of it. I let her dress herself pretty much everyday and laugh at the clothing concoctions she comes up with. I know that these things aren't really a big deal in the long run and that she is so happy because she can make her own choices.
Well, since I don't feel an ounce of normal in my body these days, I was determined that she would not own those shoes and I was taking them back. After all of the heartache and sadness she felt after we left store after store because we couldn't find the right size, they had them at Nordstrom. Davey brought Adelaide home from shopping and she proudly displayed them on her feet; she was so excited to show me. Well what did I do? I made her take them off and I marched them right back to Nordstrom. She was heartbroken. I was enraged (over a combination of things, not just the shoes).
When I got to the store I sat in the kids shoe department by the fish tank and sobbed. I was an absolute mess. In my mind I knew what a horrible mom I was for doing what I did and I knew that under any other circumstances I never would have broken my daughters heart for such a lame reason. Adelaide had wanted those shoes for so long I can't even remember how long she had been asking for them. Every time she saw the commercial on TV she would tell me how much she wanted them because she knew they would make her run fast.
I sat by that fish tank for almost an hour trying to compose myself. I had to talk myself into some sort of reality. I was finally able to take a chill pill and instead of returning them like I was determined to do, I turned around and gave them back to her. I've never seen her so happy, and I was relieved that I still had some sort of rationality left in my body.
She loves them so much she insisted on wearing them to bed last night. And even though everything in my body said no way, she went to bed happy with her shoes on her feet.
Humphrey is a middle of nowhere ghost town in the northeast corner of Idaho. My grandfather was raised there along with his ten brothers and sisters. The 800-acre family ranch has been handed down through him and his siblings over the years down to my generation.
And Memorial Day weekend is the annual get-together to talk business (the ranch is leased out for cattle grazing), fix fences (not metaphorical), and enjoy the plain sweet company of family you don't otherwise see or know.
This year I took my brother Randy and Adelaide. We met my parents and Rick and Jen and their four kids. We stopped in Lima, Montana to visit and clean some headstones. Then it was to Humphrey for hiking, exploring, playing and ranch meetings.
I have decided I still love the ranch where we spent every summer vacation of my childhood. I have decided that I want that experience for my children as they grow. I think we will head back to Humphrey this July 4th. And who knows, it might become a July 4th tradition (there's only about a month or so of warmer weather there anyway). So if you ever want to get away from it all, come with us up to Humphrey.
