Sole Patrol

You hear a lot about socks missing their mates. . . the dryer ate them. . .they get shoved under a bed. . .or couch. . .or behind the dresser. . .or they just. . . .disappear.
At our house we seem to have the same problem with shoes.
Yes, shoes.
Large, clunky, hard-to-lose shoes.
Okay, so I thought shoes were not easy to lose.
Until Zane, THE DESTROYER came onto the scene.
Last week was a real doozy for shoes. . .
On Friday he was playing with my favorite pair of flip-flops (read: chewing on them--GROSS!) so I redirected him to something else but. . .poof. . .one of those flip-flops is now really, really gone. Sure, it's somewhere in the house UNLESS he managed to get it into the trashcan without us looking (very possible) and then. . .well, sayonara shoe. And since I have been unable to locate "rightie". . ."leftie" might just be a lonely sole longing for his companion.
I might not have even really noticed the loss of my favorite shoe until Saturday rolled around.
Z and I were out and about running some errands. . .he was wearing his "good" shoes. You know, the ones I LOVE. The ones I had picked out from Stride Rite two whole months before he was even walking. The shoes I thought were the cutest shoes on Earth. The only pair of shoes worthy of being MY SON'S FIRST PAIR OF SHOES.
Yeah, those.
He was wearing them.
Until he decided to take them off and chuck them out of the stroller somewhere between Half Price Books and Old Navy.
Sigh.
To add insult to injury, I found one shoe under a rounder at Old Navy. Left my number with the stores I'd been in and those in between. No shoe.
So now we have one right size 5 1/2 W Stride Rite boys shoe sitting woefully on the counter. Poor "leftie" has gone on to the great shoe box in the sky.
And I learned a really important lesson: Sometimes I just have to cut myself a little slack.
I really wanted to beat myself up for losing that shoe. For not paying more attention. Shoes ain't cheap, people, but whatever. Now I can sort of laugh about it. Well, okay, I can really laugh about it when I picture Z hurling those shoes out of the stroller. Wind 'em up and let 'em fly.
But if you happen to find a flip flop or a little boy's blue velcro sandal. . .just give me a ring. It wouldn't be awful if our shoes found their mates.