Shoes.

When we first moved from our small town Montana community to NYC 7 years ago I was a middle school math teacher in the South Bronx, Mike was a photographer's assistant in Soho, and our days were very, very different. My first week of teaching was dominated by trying to figure out what to do with the girl rocking back and forth in the fetal position in the back of my room and sorting out dismissal on 9/11. I remember trying to make sure my students were all picked up and escorted home accordingly so that I could manage my own mess of a subway commute to our 5th story walk-up studio in hopes of finding my husband there waiting for me safe and sound. My husband's first week of work involved picking up photo supplies for his new boss only to be caught in the middle of the lower Manhattan subway mess as 9/11 was occurring, soon finding himself scaling the porch walls of an apartment building to get a better angle.

Describing the first 7 years of our marriage would require a myriad of run-on sentences, and will always point back to those first pungent days when we sucked at everything from trying to figure out what to do during a national disaster to dealing with sorting each others laundry. So here we are, 7 years 3 months later. 7 Falls, 4 apartments and 1 house, first 1 cat then 2, first 0 children now 1. One would think that with so much change would come an inherent ability to catch on, deal with, and/or rise to every challenge that dare find it's way in our path. But to be honest, if this were kindergarten in the 80's we'd both be in the "fighting turtles" class with nary a glimpse over the gate at the cooler and quicker "roaring lions" class.

I actually don't really have a point to this mess of sentences but for some reason find myself needing to remind myself that at the end of the day, I'm a brand new mom who used to be someone different and is not quite sure who she is or should be today. Hell, even Sundays are messed up. I'm a die hard Vikings fan turned NY Giants fan who hates Bret Favre Bert Faver and the Packers but now must just hate the Packers without Bert or the Jets with Bert...but I kind of like the Jets and don't really mind the Packers as long as Bert isn't there...so Sundays are just confusing. So, so confusing.

What on Earth does this all have to do with the title of this post, "Shoes" you ask? Abso-freaking EVERYTHING. Come on - when you wake up reminiscing about random years of your life questioning your parenting strategies, your routines, your obligations, what better to do than hunker down and scan the Web for the newest, sexiest, most fabulous shoes you can find?!! So I did, and I found them. Well, actually 3 of them...

Someday I'll take all of those feelings and find somewhere productive to stuff them, but for now I'm going to break in my new Camper Mary Jane's and live a little fun with the most adorable boy in the universe... and he couldn't care less that his mom just might be a shoe junkie.

T-minus 3 hours till T.G.I.F - and counting every second.