picking my battles...

We've all heard the adage pick your battles. For me, it was given as a bit of marital advice from a dear friend at a bridal shower. However, since John and I rarely even so much as argue, I haven't (until now) had much use for it. It's a wise proverb though, and one I had planned on keeping close at hand, and referring to often during Ruby's years of adolescence...ha ha. Little did I know that she would come pre-packaged possessing a significant amount of defiance, and that this little personality trait would manifest itself almost immediately upon her exiting my womb. Ah, my little Ruby girl. My little audacious, mutinous, resistant, and sassy little Ruby girl.
As I've previously stated, Ruby loves my shoes. And notwithstanding the fact that they weigh three times as much as mine, she loves her daddy's shoes, too. She has recently taken a liking to flip flops, and even surprises us by putting them on properly...strap between the first and second toes. But above all else, she loves my heels...pumps, stilettos, wedges - you name it - anything that makes a clip-clop. If ever she has "disappeared" within the walls of our own house, I can almost always count on finding her inside my closet, exploring amongst all the shoes. (A true girl, I must say...and one with great taste, too.) So anyway, the other day I was trying to get her to remove my shoes from her feet and replace them with hers so that we could go run some errands. This is where her defiant little personality - the one that I previously mentioned - comes in to play. To say it simply...she threw a fit. The harder I tried to pry them from her feet, the louder she wailed, and the deeper her little red face became...until I thought it would pop like a cherry tomato. It was now my time to decide if this was really worth the battle...and I decided that it wasn't...and so off we went. A mother, and her 20 month old baby - both wearing ladies shoes, size 7.5 - both feeling rather triumphant and victorious. Me, because I relinquished the conflict, and her, well because she feels like a princess in mom's shoes. She got lots of smiles from strangers as she clip-clopped through Kinko's, and then into Barnes & Noble. Lots of smiles, and lots of laughs, and plenty of praise through flattering words such as "oh my, what a pretty little girl", and "oh, wow, so grown up in such pretty shoes". One couple even stopped to ask if they could take a picture of her. She was loving it. And I loved watching her parade through the stores and parking lots as if she owned them all...

No, definitely not "battle" worthy at all.