Those boots are made for walking...

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood,... a beautiful day in the neighborhood! Mr. Rogers SO had it right! How can 64 degrees in February not be a good thing?

Lil Pooper and her friend BusyIzzy played, and played, and played at the park today. She even went down the slide all by herself for the first time! She is such and explorer :) And...oh AND! LILPOOPER WORE HER SHOES THE ENTIRE TIME!!

For those of you that don't know about the apparent perils of wearing shoes, you should ask my daughter. She hates, and I mean HATES having anything on her feet. Footed pajama's?! Nope. Socks?! Nada. Shoes?! HA! People tell me, "well you're her mother, just make her do it!" To which I say, "Have you met my baby?" I have learned the hard way that you CANNOT make this child do anything. It is much more productive to encourage her to choose the right thing and simply avoid those things which we don't want. She is fiercely independent, lil miss i-can-do-it-all-by-myself-even-if-i-actually-can't, a true doing-it-my-way kinda girl. So when she got so upset when I tried to put shoes on her (and I mean crying till she coughs and eventually throws up. Screaming until she turns this lovely shade of blue. Trying so hard to pry the "evil foot traps" off her feet that she ends up hurting herself) I finally decided it wasn't worth it anymore. Some day she will wear shoes, I mean have you ever seen a freshman in college trudging through the snow without boots on? Nah, me neither. I figured in time she would work it out.

Well friends, today was that day! I found a great pair of soft soled shoes that she will actually tolerate. She even looked down at them once and said "pitty!!" (adult translation, = pretty!). Ahh, learning to let your child set the pace can be really difficult sometimes, but the pay off is awsome! Who knew that wearing shoes could make a momma so proud :)