My little baby is turning into a little girly-girl. How did this happen?
Until recently, we’ve struggled to keep a bow in her ever-longer hair, which instead fell into her eyes like a little blond sheepdog. She didn’t hate the bows, but she was curious about them and preferred to have them in her hands where she could inspect them. She obediently wore shoes in public, but we wanted her to go shoeless in the house, and she didn’t show a preference either way.
But within the past week or so, those two things seem to have changed. She has now decided that bows are more than ok – they are awesome. Especially her little felt owl bow. When she sees it lying on her dresser, she’ll point and ask, “Owl? Owl? Owl? Hair? Hair?” She sits very still while we put the bow in, looks in the mirror to see how cute it is, and for the most part leaves it alone. I need to get a picture of it. Today, we put this pink felt flower in her hair (ordered along with the owl from the store Maya Papaya on etsy.com) to go to church, and she kept it in the whole time.

She also now likes shoes, and apparently prefers girly-girl shoes. We knew she was outgrowing her first pair of stride rites and were planning to get her some more, but in the meantime we picked up this cheaper Target pair as back-up shoes.

In the store, she seemed quite taken with the little flowers on the shoes. The next day when she came home from baby school and I took them off, thinking her little feet deserved a rest, she cried. I didn’t make the connection at first, until she picked them up and tried to hand them back to me, wailing, “Shoos! Shoos!” I put them back on, and she happily scampered off to play with her toys.
That was even more reason to get her a good pair of new shoes – because if she wants to wear them more often, they need to be sturdy and well made for growing feet.
Around the house, we try to get her to wear these:

They’re basically leather house slippers (the Target version of the much more expensive Robeez brand), and she seems to like them. Whenever we put them on, we get an approving “Oof! Oof!” They’re not constraining so I don’t worry about them affecting her foot development, and they keep her tootsies warmer and help her not slide on the hardwoods.
These are her first stride rites – the ones she has outgrown:

I had my concerns when I first bought these shoes. They were so expensive, and I wasn’t sure any pair of baby shoes could be worth fifty bucks. But she has worn them to school nearly every day, played on the playground, run, climbed, crawled, etc., and they’ve held up. You can see how worn the leather is, how the sole is just beginning to shred at the toe, and I’m fairly certain more cheaply made shoes would’ve been in the trash can a long time ago.

So, I’m now a believer in spending a bit more for shoes since childhood is kind of rough on them. Yesterday, we got her a new pair of kicks from stride rite, and so far, she seems to like them.

She doesn’t pine for them like her flower shoes, but maybe there is enough pink trim to satisfy this little girly girl.