Neon Cherry Slushie Colored

I have these garden shoes that I bought at the local feed mill many years back. I am very much in love with them. They are designed like Crocs, but aren't. They are red rubber slip on mules, but have no holes for water to seep in and dignity to seep out. Plus they were $5 on clearance. You can't even go wrong with something like that. Except they're hideous because they're rubber mules in cherry slushie red. I love these things and wear them All.Over.The.Yard. But that's where it ends. These things never see the public and the public never sees them. There are no exceptions.

These awesome shoes live by my patio door so I can slip them on any time I need to head out and garden or feed chickens or pick flowers or look for dogs. But this summer, it seems when I need them, they're not there.

Micah is the problem. That boy steals those shoes and wears them outside because they fit his feet (mostly), they're handily located by the door, and they slip on easily. I tried having his own shoes there for him, but it's not the same, apparently. He still takes mine. And when I need them, they are MIA. It's frustrating, that's what that is.

So I was at Big Lots and saw a pair of Croc-knock-offs (complete with the dignity-leaking holes) in Micah's size for $5. SCORE! Except they were the color of neon cherry slushie. I know mine are cherry slushie red, but that neon adjective makes all the difference. They're almost a glowing kind of special pink. Definitely not very boy-like, and not something a girl would be all that proud to be wearing either. But Micah wears them, because he's not a girl and he has no misconceptions of what is acceptable and what isn't. He just knows what he likes, and likes to wear what he loves. He loves those neon red foot things.

I didn't mind buying them, despite the color, because my hard and fast rule was that he ONLY wear them around the house. Like I do. Public and plastic shoes never jive. The family were more than glad to comply with this rule. If anyone saw Micah attempt to wear those things into a vehicle, he was sent to the house to change immediately.

Micah was wearing those hideously awful things last week and scraped the back of his heel while getting off the Gator. He sported a large scab once it finally grew over, and that scab bothered him enough that he picked at it until it came off, and then it hurt him, and it scabbed over again, and the process repeats itself often and it's so frustrating because OHMYGOSH. And because of the placement of that frustration, he can't wear regular shoes.

And this, my friends, is why you don't ever buy anything for your kids that you wouldn't want them to be seen in public wearing everywhere they go for weeks on end. His faux Crocs have enough holes for the entire family's dignity to have leaked right out, and yet Micah wears them with his held high because he loves those things immensely. How's his foot? Healing slowly. Thanks for asking.