squeak squeak

I love little kids, I really do. Granted I probably love them because I usually only get them in small doses, but I love them anyway. I have a 2-year-old niece (whom I love more than any other kid in the world right now) and a nephew on the way (who is technically Luis' nephew but I'll claim him as my own... p.s. it is fun to see how excited Luis gets about his soon-to-be-born nephew). I love it when birthdays and Christmas come around because it gives me a reason to buy cute/fun little kid presents (a few months ago for my niece's 2nd b-day I found this super cute memory game that came in a plastic egg carton and had these little barnyard animals that you would hide under an egg and then the child is supposed to find the match... it was a little too advanced for her at the time, but as you can see in the picture we still had fun playing with the eggs and little animals).

I say all of this because I know how fun it is to find cute things for kids. And for some reason when you are at the store looking at the vast array of children's toys/clothing/shoes you kind of get caught up in the cuteness and forget about the concept of reality. For example, toys that make noises are great. They are super cute and have the ability to capture a child's attention in a second. However, when you've heard the toy 20 million times in the space of 20 minutes, you start regretting having allowed yourself to purchase the toy in the first place.

Today at the library, a mom walked in with an adorable toddler. The toddler had on these cute little sandals that squeak when the child walks. I have seen shoes such as these in the past and have thought they were just so precious. Today, however, was a different story. When I saw this mom and her child, it made me wonder how many walks the mom was going to go on before she hid the shoes in the closet or donated them to DI. I can handle playing with noise-making toys for a little while, but imagine walking for 5 minutes all the while hearing "squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak..." The conclusion I came up with is that either this mom is a saint or she has successfully learned the art of tuning out small repetitive noises. Life lesson learned: If I do not learn to tune out small repetitive noises, the only time my future children will ever get to wear anything fun or play with fun noisy toys will be at their grandmas' houses.