Every summer my daughter’s feet go through some pretty amazing growth spurts. Usually about two sizes. I’m thankful that she does this massive growth during the summer because sandals and flip-flops are quite a bit more forgiving than tennis shoes.

But now we are in the rainy start of fall, and we had to get her some new shoes. We headed out to Target, Wal-Mart, and Payless looking for just the right shoe. My daughter, who is only five, is all girl and loves to try on shoes. As many as she can get her hands on feet in. I did my best trying to steer her towards a practical Mary Jane shoe. Something that would look just as great with a dress as it would with a pair of pants. That’s me though, I’m practical. My daughter is anything but practical. She sparkles. She is awesome. So it was no big surprise that all the shoes I picked out were not okay with her. I could have played the mommy card and bought them anyway, but I like to give her as many options to express herself as I can. If I insist that her clothes match when we leave the house, often to her dismay, I could at least let her choose her shoes.

At first when she picked up these shoes, I thought it looked like a rainbow threw up on a pair of tennis shoes. But the more I saw her wearing them, the more they simply became the perfect shoe for her. They are bright, and shiny. They sparkle. They even light up, just like she lights up the room she’s in. My point is that maybe when our kids want something that on first glance we think is awful, we should just give it a chance. It could be that they know what suits them better than we do. And they are only free to be this spunky for a short period in their life, why not let them go for it and have some fun?

-Stephanie Wright