Two Black Shoes

Last week I took Roan shoe shopping. He needed a new pair of sneakers and like everything else lately, he insisted that they be black. Black is his favorite color. When I ask him why he says, "because black steam engine, Mommy."

Roan rode wobble bike to the shoe store, and Ilan fell asleep in the ergo. The shoe lady measured his feet (9 and a half!) and after a lot of rummaging around in the back informed me that there were no black shoes in his size. I prompted Roan to try on gray shoes ("the color of coal in coal cars!" I said cheerfully), but no. Roan had started up an "I want BLACK SHOES" chant that threatened to turn ugly. So we left to ride wobble bike home and order shoes online.

We looked at a lot of black shoes on Zappos. We even watched videos about them. Roan didn't seem to like any of them. He was getting more and more demanding and added "I want TWO SHOES" to his "I want BLACK SHOES" mantra.

Taking into account the wobble bike commute, we had spent over 3 hours on Operation Black Shoes. Ilan was awake and crying. I was ready to be done. And now Roan wanted two pairs?

We finally settled on a pair of black Adidas that were on sale. I explained how the mailman would deliver them in a few days. How they would come in a box with our name on it that we'd get to open.

"But Mommy," he said, "I need TWO shoes!"

This went on all day. I got more and more irritated. It wasn't like him to be so ungrateful. I talked lot about being thankful for what we have and told silly stories about a little boy who always wanted more. I talked about the economy of using only what we need. It wasn't until late in the afternoon that I finally put it together. All the shoes we looked at online, they showed an image of only one shoe. He wasn't asking for two *pairs* of shoes, he was asking for one for each foot!

Days later, when the black shoes came in the mail, he seemed very excited that there were two.