Shoes

Even the most delightful toddler occasionally likes to punish his parents for, you know, breathing. Today was our turn.

Dash came home from a day of hanging out with actual wild animals at school. Seriously, they brought in a monkey and, like, a goat or something. I'm not quite sure. Anyway, it was awesomely amazing and the child was thrilled and full of laughter and dancing and actual rainbows shot out of his actual ass on the way home. Josh couldn't wait to get this baby home to tickle him and dance around to They Might Be Giants and shoot whipped cream into his maw straight from the can.

Wasn't to be.

The child wasn't all the way in the door when he melted the fuck down. Neither one of us has even a guess as to what happened or why. He just stumbled into the entry, hurled himself onto the floor and proceeded to imitate a cartoon of a baby throwing a tantrum. For two hours. Straight. Without even a break for dinner. There was even screaming in between long pulls on his milk. For two hours, you understand.

In all of the uproar I'd forgotten to show Josh the spoils of my most recent trip to a discount department store near my office (I take finding bargains incredibly seriously). Not anything too thrilling. Just a shirt for Josh, some baskets and a sweet little frame for me, and two new pairs of shoes for the baby.

Well. I now have my actual first proof that Dash is my child, too, and not just some scraping of Josh's cheek forced to divide and transferred into my naive uterus. When the baby saw his Two! New! Pairs! Of! Shoes! (One! With! Velcro!) all of our previously offensive existing was promptly forgotten. All that was left was a celebration of life and shoes (a different one on each foot) all the rest of the night through.

As it should be.