The other day I took Ava to the beach. She loves the water and especially the sand. We splashed around, dug holes in the sand, and smiled – a lot!
On our way back to the Jeep, we stopped at the playground so Ava could run around and swing [and hopefully dry off and ditch some of the sand]. When it was time to go, she didn’t want to leave [big surprise] and started to throw quite the tantrum. She did that thing where she arched her back and let her legs go limp when I tried to pick her up, and I dropped one of the bags I was hauling. When I put her down to pick up the tote, she took off running for the slide. I caught her and started walking to the car. She was sobbing and kept trying to say something, but I couldn’t understand. I thought she was having a worse than normal reaction to leaving, but maybe she was just tired. I still couldn’t figure out what it was she was yelling, and then she took a deep breath, looked at me through her teary eyes and said, “shoe, mommy”. I looked down at her feet and saw one of her shoes was missing. It must have fallen off when she went for the slide. As soon as I acknowledged it and headed back to pick it up, the tears stopped and she was all happy-go-lucky again. Baby loves her shoes.
The Shoes.

















