"On closer inspection, these are loafers."

I consider shoes to be a fairly integral part of my day. When I go outside, I need shoes. When I workout on my stair climber, I need shoes. When I scoop kitty litter, I don’t really need shoes, but they’re highly recommended if I want to keep tiny clay chunks and other things from embedding themselves in my socks. Abbie, though, shuns all kinds of footwear, and will actively work to remove shoes and socks, preferring that her feet go au natural. We’ve had a few struggles, some involving biting, where I attempt to reattach shoes while she attempts to re-remove them. She’s always done her best to reject any sort of covering in general, kind of like Paris Hilton with better taste.

I remember in the hospital when she was born, the nurses would tightly swaddle her after they completed their latest series of pokes and prods, and Abbie did not seem to enjoy her situation. Granted, Abbie didn’t enjoy much of anything those first few days (weeks … months … years), but being swaddled seemed to especially tick her off. This was all just as well since I couldn’t swaddle a comatose newborn howler monkey, let alone a ticked off newborn human. I’d do my best to emulate the OB nurses (they must know what they’re doing, right?) and wrap Abbie as tightly as I could before setting her down to sleep. Kicking her way out of my “swaddling” must have been the first thing she did, after she stopped laughing at my handiwork of course, because I would always find her with her legs splayed out from under the sheet. This behavior continued at home when we put her in a full-body gown for sleeping. These gowns have elastic around the bottom meant to enclose the feet and give the wearer a warm sense of comfort. Naturally Abbie always managed to spurn this comfort by kicking the elastic up around her waist and exposing her legs by morning. To her credit, she never tries to remove pants or other clothing besides exposed socks. The result is she usually goes barefoot.

If she stays indoors, she can go barefoot all day without a problem. Until she started walking a couple of months ago, we could go out around the town without shoes as long as the weather was warm enough. When it was cold, I found a nifty pair of snowman slippers to attach to her feet that were tight enough that she couldn’t remove them. Now that she can and often insists on walking, I don’t feel right letting her stomp her germ-encrusted bare feet around public spaces. Years of enforcing the “No shirt, no shoes, no service” policy at the local Dairy Queen will do that to a person. The snowman slippers are now too small and seasonally inappropriate, so I need to find some real shoes. Our first test shoes were a couple pairs of sandals. These seemed like a good choice since they were very cute* and the Velcro fasteners made them easy to put on. Of course, the Velcro also made them easy to take off. Plus, that nifty ripping noise Velcro makes practically encourages her to remove her shoes. After several bouts of reattaching sandals while sitting in the car with the motor turned off and the sun blaring through the windows, I decided she needed footwear that was a little more difficult to detach. So she now has a wonderful new pair of actual shoes that, even though they also use Velcro, are much harder to remove. I tested them today on a vigorous afternoon of shopping for Vital Supplies (the new boxed set of The Daily Show) and they passed with flying colors; only one shoe came off! Now if I can just get her to stop biting, life will be perfect.

* They were cute according to my wife; I can’t tell the difference between genuine cute and a steaming pile of baby spit