High Heels

     Last Tuesday, as I was bringing Clara in from the car, I tickled her side with my fingers and said, "Dee, dee, dee!"  I've been doing that since she was old enough to chortle and she's always loved it.  But on Tuesday she pushed my hand away and said, "Dop.  No.  Dop."  Then she scowled at me and said, "Down." I put her down and she ran away to play.
     On Wednesday, while I was making my bed, she opened the dresser drawer where I keep my workout gear and donned three of my sports bras. She wore them like bandoliers.  It wasn't long before her arm got tangled and she shrieked in indignation.  I tried to help her and she got more angry.
     "You know what? I don't want you to play with these," I said, taking the bras off her.  "I don't like the way you get tangled up.  I don't like it when you put things around your neck.  You know that's not safe."
     She looked at me with a very level, steady gaze.
     "Mommy," she said, and then wiggled past me and back into my bedroom.  She ventured into the darkness of the closet and emerged a moment later with two different high-heeled shoes: a silver heel with a glittery buckle that I wore on my wedding day; and a sleek, black heel I last wore about a year ago.  I don't wear heels very often.
     "Shoes, Mommy," she said, and struggled to put them on.  They were extremely hard to figure out.  She didn't understand where the strap on the silver heel should go and stuck her foot through backwards.  The shoes were tipsy and sharp, and this was confusing, too.  She laid them on their sides, but that was even sillier.  She couldn't walk on the sides of her feet.
     "Mommy! Shoes! Nai nunnew shoes."
     I stood the heels up side-by-side and lowered her into them.  Her tiny feet barely reached the point where the soles started to rise. She looked down the outside of her leg at the silver shoe.  She seemed to tilt her foot in a little so she could get a better idea of the way the heel sloped elegantly to the floor.

     After a few shuffling, sliding steps, she stepped out of the heels and went back into the closet to rummage.  She came out with a dirty pair of Simon's athletic socks.
     "Socks," she said matter-of-factly.  Did I think she didn't realize that you needed socks with shoes?  Well, she didn't wear socks with her Crocs, of course, but this was a different thing altogether.  Clearly, these shoes required socks.  And no, she didn't need my help.  If she could only find the holes to put her feet in.
     She struggled and struggled and finally she sighed.
     "Mommy, socks."
     I put them on her.
     It seemed strange that these socks went all the way to her diaper.  On Daddy they only went partway up his calves.
     I helped her back into the high heels and bunched the socks down around her knees.
     Luckily, the silver sequined purse was nearby.  She knew how to hold a purse, but in this situation it was especially important to hold it delicately.