Growth Spurt Adventures

When I was growing up I used to often hear the expression “caught with your pants down” to refer to something happening that you were not prepared for. This is how I felt a few days ago.

When having an infant I knew when to expect growth spurts and could plan in advance thanks to a handy chart that gave me the average times for them; when having a toddler the timeline is not so clear and it’s easy to forget that they still don’t grow at a steady rate.

I could tell that Zen’s sandals would need to be replaced in the near future but I thought I had a few weeks to find a good sale. Nope! I wake up one morning and his feet simply won’t fit into them anymore.

You would think that it would be easy to buy toddler sandals in Florida where there is sandal friendly weather year round and no shortage of stores to shop at. Guess again!

After this sudden growth spurt we went on what we thought was an easy quest at the mall for a new pair.

2 days, several plazas and 14 stores later we were still empty handed. I was shocked to see that many stores only had 1 or 2 styles of sandals to choose from if any at all! And those that sold any didn’t have his size in stock.

By the end of the second day I was wondering if every 2 year old in the county had a growth spurt at the same time disrupting the balance between supply and demand.

Meanwhile the “crocs” that he was wearing gave him a blister and he could barely walk leaving him stuck with just 1 pair of sneakers that still fits (I wonder for how long).

After lots of wasted gas and time I have given up and ordered his sandals online. I wish that I could have used Amazon Prime but we have found such a wide variation on sizes that I decided to stick to the brand that I know his exact size for so he is stuck with sneakers until they arrive until they arrive next week.

I remember hearing about an app where you scan your child’s feet with your tablet to get their size and then order online.  I may be looking into that.