Footprints

Your feet will bring you where your heart is.

Irish proverb

Lindsay is now officially 5 months pregnant, halfway there.  Last Sunday, when I was home resting from what I thought was the flu but turned out to be just a 48-hour bug, Lindsay and Scott had a sonogram done by her friend, Renae, who is a sonogram technician.  I was disappointed that I couldn’t go because I was sick. However, the consolation prize turned out to be extremely good sonogram pictures, one where I can actually see that there is, in fact, a baby in there.  The first picture that she sent me, via iPhone message is this:

Do you see those cute little feet?  With ten perfect little toes (thank G-d!).  This is a very important picture of my granddaughter, one that I will cherish my whole life.  I remember when both Lindsay and Kim were born, the first thing Mark and I did was count their toes and fingers.  Then the hospital took a footprint, which I still have of both my girls. Who would have thought that as a grandma, I would get a footprint of my granddaughters feet months before she is even born, one where I could do the toe-count check?  Who would have thought that I could do this when they are actually about an inch long, the size of half of my pinky finger?  In about four months, I will hold those precious feet in my hands and remember the size they were when I first beheld them. 

Coincidently, my whole week became about feet.  Kimberly found out she had her first full-time job interview in the new field she has chosen to enter.  It was also in the college she wanted to work in.  Of course she had to buy the right pair of interview shoes. Buying shoes for Kimberly is no small feat- no pun intended. 

So, naturally, on Monday night, we went to DSW ­– the shoe warehouse, aptly named because DSW is both impressive and oppressive as you enter and glimpse countless aisles of shoes, boots, sneakers etc.  It's daunting!  You would think that we would have a grand selection of shoes for Kim to choose from.  You would think that, but no.  First of all, Kim is a size “7” the most popular size and the first one stores run out of.  Add to that the fact that poor Kim has flat, wide feet and cannot wear heels, not to mention her tendency to give up easily.  She didn’t inherit her feet from me, nor her tendency to give up.  So after she walked down a couple of aisles, saying either- These will kill my feet, or Of course they don’t have my size, I told her to sit down while I went down aisle after aisle, carrying about 25 pairs of shoes back and forth for her to try on.  It felt more like 100 pairs after 20 minutes.  And let me tell you this, the aisles in DSW are long, very long. 

Still, I persevered, while Kim sat there, complaining about her feet and insisting that she will never find a pair of shoes that she can walk confidently into an interview with.  Pair after pair was either too tight, too loose, slipped in the back when she walked or made her stumble when she practiced walking in them.  She was getting crankier while I was getting weary, running up and down the long, oppressive DSW aisles, carrying back more shoes for her to try, like an idiot. I had a vision in my head of my alter ego- slapping myself across the face, saying “Stop trying to FIX everything!”  Of course this is my version of the truth, because Kim’s version is that I’m just a "crazy shoe shopper". 

In the end, Kim walked out of DSW, with only the shoes she wore on her feet.  But when she went home and tried on a pair of my shoes- they fit her perfectly and looked great with the dress she planned to wear to the interview.  Moral of the story: all she had to do was “click her heels” to find the right pair of shoes in her mom’s closet at home.  There’s no place like mom’s closet. 

Still, I persisted in trying to locate one of the possible pair of shoes Kim liked that they didn’t have in a size 7 in the DSW on Long Island.  And when I went to Staten Island during the week for work, I did find them only to bring them home to find out, not surprisingly, that even the right size were uncomfortable on Kim’s feet.  So, I had to return them, but I rewarded myself with a beautiful new pair of black suede shoe boots.  And when I came home I told Kim to keep the pair of shoes she was borrowing from me.  Happy feet. Happy ending.

But the shoe search saga doesn’t end here.  My mom has been complaining about her shoes for the longest time and we discovered that as she is aging and getting thinner and shorter, her feet are getting smaller as well.  Is this the story of life- as our progeny develop in the womb, growing, we are shrinking?  Anyway, I made a date with my mom on Friday to look for shoes for her, not in DSW, mind you.  We went to Macy’s. 

And there I was again, I had my mother sit on a chair, while I went through the shoe department looking for the perfect shoe for my mother’s not so perfect feet.  Unlike DSW, Macy’s does have people to help you locate your size, but on that day, they were naturally, nowhere to be found.  I ended up finding the shoes myself, right on the shelf.  Of course, the sales people suddenly appeared when we had to pay for them.

The middle part of the week was eventful too.  Lindsay had pains in her stomach from Monday through Thursday and when she called her ob-gyn, they told her to come in for an ultrasound.  Scott has been away for two weeks in freezing Minnesota, so I went with her.  Thankfully, everything was okay- her belly is just stretching and she needs to drink more water.  Luckily, though, I got to sit in on this ultrasound, albeit a very brief one with a very impatient technician. Although, after graciously thanking her about 10 times and telling her I never saw the ultrasound in person, she ended up printing it up and clipping off a copy for me, which I carefully tucked into my wallet to carry around forever.

Yesterday, Lindsay, my mom and I went shopping for the perfect “coming home from the hospital” outfit, which is a story for another blog entry.  Afterward, she stayed for dinner and then we watched a movie.  Apparently, sweets wake the baby up in the womb, so Lindsay had a delicious bowl of Edy’s Slow Churned Caramel Delight ice cream and I had one too.  Then we sat on the couch, my hand on Lindsay’s growing belly and I felt those little one-inch feet kicking for the first time.  The movie was very depressing, but all I felt was joy. 

It could have been her feet, and then again it could have been her hands and here’s one waving “bye-bye” until next time.