Clean up, Aisle 5!

My boys are constantly taking off their shoes and throwing them. I've tried shoes with laces, shoes with zippers, slip-ons, it doesn't matter. They can get any shoe off their foot and dispose of it quickly. I've mastered the art of collecting thrown shoes and stashing them in my purse as we go about our daily activities. However, despite my best efforts, we've lost a shoe. Now we have 3 where there should be 4. We've searched everywhere and called Costco's lost and found multiple times. It's gone.

So, I hauled the kids to Target for some new shoes. We found some, then I thought I'd take a quick gander at the spring toddler dresses (looking for something orange for Maggie to wear to sister in law Megan's wedding). I parked the enormous triple stroller in the aisle and popped over to another rack to check out the selection.

I seriously hadn't been away from the stroller for 7 seconds when I hear a woman yelling desperately as if she needed the attention of the whole store, "Excuse me! Who's son is this? Excuse me! Is this your son? I can't get this shoe on! Who's kid is this? This shoe won't go on!!"

I made my way over to her and said, "He's mine. I'll take the shoe."

She handed me the shoe and walked away with this exasperated look on her face, like I had just ruined her day by abandoning my son while he was busy throwing his shoe as is his latest whimsy.

Maybe, I'll just stop buying shoes. But that would be a shame, 'cause then what would they throw?