“Okay.” She takes the sock, and with a look of pure concentration on her face, she pulls it on her foot. “I did it,” she tells me.
“Great job, Princess. Now let’s try this shoe.” I put it on her foot and lace it up. “Can you walk that way for me so we can see how they feel?”
She nods, hops off the stool and walks up and down the row of shoes. “These are soft,” she says.
“You like them? We can keep looking.”
“No, I like these so, so much.”
“All right, come over here and let me see where your toe is.”
“East,” she giggles loudly, “my toes are in my shoes.” She laughs.
“Get over here, giggle box.” When she’s standing in front of me, I check her toes, and it’s right on. “Can we get these in a half size bigger?” I ask the sales assistant.
“Why we doing that?” she asks. “These ones fit.”
“Because you will grow between now and then. I want you to be able to wear them longer.”
“I’m getting so, so big. My birthday I’ll be this many.” She holds up her hand, showing me five fingers.
“I know. Five years old, you’re practically an old woman.”
“No, that’s Gram,” she says seriously. I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.
After we pay for the shoes, I stop at the mall directory and look for this Build-A-Bear place. It’s not too far down from the shoe store, so I head that way.
“You smell those cookies?” she asks me.
I smile down at her. “Sure do. How about we shop a little more, then grab some lunch? We’ll save the cookies for dessert.”
“Yay!” she cheers. “Can we take one to Mommy too?’
“Sure thing, princess.” We continue walking in the direction of the bear place when Paisley stops and looks up at me. “What’s up?” I ask her.
“Thank you so, so much for my shoes. I forgot to say that.”
“You’re welcome. Let’s go see what else we can get into. Let’s buy something for Mommy. You got any ideas?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I think we should get her something she needs, like your shoes. Do you remember her saying anything that she would like to have?”
“Hmmm,” she says, thinking.
“Shoes or clothes, something for school?”
“She was yelling at her computer today when I was being loud. It did something to her homework.”
“What did it do?”
“She said it froze it. I don’t know how that happened because it wasn’t cold when I touched it, but then Mommy told me not to touch her computer. That it was on its last leg. I didn’t tell her this ’cause she was already sad, but computers don’t have legs. Not that I can see. Do computers have legs, East?” she asks.
“No, that’s an expression people use when something is about to break forever.”
“Oh,” her mouth forms an O.
Looking up, we just happen to be standing in front of an Apple store. I know Larissa has an iPhone, so this should work great. Twenty minutes later, we have a new computer, with a pink case, that Paisley picked out, in hand.