What is that sound?

I've discovered another trait the girls picked up from me - large feet.

Sure, they have their mother's coup de-toe, but they seem to have my length.  They also have the ability to outgrow shoes quickly.

Several weeks before our vacation Julia ordered them new shoes as their little toes were becoming scrunched in their current pairs. 

Several weeks went by and we still had not received said shoes.

The night before we left we decided they were not coming, so we headed to a local shoe store.  By local, I mean the only store that carried the brand we (and by we I mean Julia as she does the shoe research) wanted was 30 miles away.  We called them and confirmed they carried the shoes and had the ones we wanted.  Off we went.

The store did, in fact, have one pair of the shoes we wanted.  They had nothing else in the style we wanted in the girls size.  We contemplated buying a different type, but they didn't have the features and support Julia was looking for. 

Then it happened.

The salesman brought out a pair of Squeakers. 

We slipped them on and the girls took off.  Fortunately, we were the only ones in the store at the time.

Do you hear that funny, squeaky sound?

Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak.

With every step they took a squeaking sound was produced by their shoes.

NO.  NO WAY.  TAKE THEM OFF WE ARE NOT GETTING THEM.

That was my initial reaction. 

I mashed their feet back into their old shoes and prepared to leave. 

Brynne started to take her shoes off.  Only then did I notice how the velcro strap appeared to be cutting off her circulation. 

MacGyver might have just cut the end of the shoe off and created space for her toes, but that wouldn't have allowed the blood to flow to those toes freely.

We tried on several different sizes of other shoes, but none fit quite as nicely as the Squeakers.

The salesman assured me the squeak-making piece of the shoe could be easily removed, so we went ahead and purchased the shoes.

I had every intention of removing the squeaky thing, but I didn't. There are a few reasons for that:

1 - the squeaky sound is very easy to identify and lets me know exactly where they are.  If for some reason they escaped my grasp and took off I could follow the squeak better than a GPS tracker.

2 - they love to hear the squeaky sound.  Both of them have done their fair share of toe walking, but this was encouraging them to walk properly.

3 - one of the squeakers did fall out on its own on vacation, and this caused a little distress for Hadley.  She went from "squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak" to "squeak, (silence), squeak, (silence)".  She then stopped and just started stomping her squeak-less foot in an effort to get the squeak back - this is how I realized the squeaker was gone.  No sound was being produced and she didn't want to move until it did.

At this point we went back to the hotel for bed time, searched for a local store that had the Squeakers, and found one the only one in a  60 mile radius just happened to be right close to our next morning destination - so we stopped in and got a replacement squeaker.

So, I 've gone from vehemently opposing the squeak, to actually seeking out a replacement squeak.

All was once again right with the world. 

As with anything you constantly hear, the squeaking is now hardly noticeable to us.  People are constantly commenting on them and we have yet to hear a negative remark.

Yes, I did use some form of squeak 28 times in this post.  I dare you to outdo me.