Looking for Mary Jane

No, not that kind of Mary Jane. To be more specific, I should say we were looking for Mary Janes.

It's May, so that means about seven weeks of school are left. Clare's shoes, unfortunately, weren't in this school year for the long haul.

I'd seen it coming. The scuff marks had turned sections of Clare's black shoes into more of a grey-brown-black mess. The soles were worn. Seams were beginning to loosen and the velcro on the straps had worn pretty thin. I would polish them as best as possible so they'd look a little less embarrassing. Although they'd look okay in the morning after a shine, in the afternoon the same scrappy shoes would come home.

Then last Thursday it happened. Clare tore her shoe off and the velcro tore apart. The piece that's supposed to stick to the shoe wasn't stuck to the shoe anymore—it was stuck to the other side of the velcro.

I thought about stapling the velcro back where it should be, but that would have looked too trashy. I though about whether some gaff tape or duct tape might hold it together somehow. It's the universal remedy isn't it? And it definitely would have added some personality to the shoe. I wasn't sure duct tape was the right tool for the job though. And Clare's Catholic school probably woudn't have appreciated my inventiveness. I did try glue and it held well enough for Clare to wear the shoes on Friday. I obviously didn't use the right glue though, because the velcro tore right off again when she pulled the shoe off Friday afternoon.

So, we spent the weekend looking for Catholic school uniform black Mary Janes. There is an official uniform store about thirty miles away, but they're hours are short on the weekends (except at the beginning of the school year) and they wanted fifty bucks for the shoes. I thought we could do better.

Unfortunately, doing better wasn't easy. Finding black dress shoes when most stores are stocking sandals, sneakers and flip flops was a chore. And's what with the high heels on play shoes for girls who haven't even reached size one yet?!

Yesterday—after ordering a pair online that'll take a few days to get here—we finally found some acceptable shoes in a store and bought those too. (I'd say we found them in the last place we looked, but that's kind of a foolish saying—obviously it was the last place we looked because we stopped looking after we found them.)

So Clare is wearing September-new shoes to school today. And, when the online order comes in, she'll have two pairs unless we can return those. At least she'll already have shoes for next year. We just have to keep her feet from growing over the summer. Any ideas how we can do that?