Puppy with Big Paws

Don't get so excited by the title.  We did NOT get a dog.  Banish the thought.

Dennis took Alex, our oldest, out to buy new shoes for school yesterday.  When he got home he couldn't wait to show me.  

"Cool,"  I said.

"They're size 10 1/2!" he said, beaming with pride.

It took me a second to process.  Hello, that is a MAN's size 10 1/2, not a kid's size.  Remember?  It took me another second to do the math.  If I wear a women's 12, that translates to a man's 9 1/2...

"Holy Cow, boy!  You have bigger feet than I do!"  I grabbed his new tennis shoes right out of the shoebox, pulled out the tissue paper stuffing, and slipped them easily onto my enormous feet.

And the thing is, I have gigantic feet!!!  Size 12.  I can't even walk into your average shoe store and buy a pair of shoes.  In all my years of garage saleing, I have only once found shoes my size (that was a happy day!).  My feet are freakishly large.  His feet are larger - and I am almost a foot taller than him!  That might be why it caught me so off guard. He still seems little to me.  His feet, obviously, are not.

Whoa!  When did this happen?  Only 12 years ago his feet were like two inches long, and I would just marvel at his perfectly formed tiny little toes with those eensy weensy toenails.  

But the truth is, with the gene pool he has, there was never any hope for him, or any of my sons, to have normal size feet.  We used to joke that when our babies are born, they weigh the baby, then they weigh his feet.  Wait till Caleb gets bigger.  Special order shoes for him?

No wonder those boys sound like a herd of cattle when they're running through the house.  What ever happened to the pitter patter of little feet?

Anyways, I am over the shock of it now.  It was just one of those mom moments when you have to stop, and to try to catch up with how fast your kids are changing right under your nose.  Of course, he'll be up over my nose in no time.  That will be another shock, when I realize a kid is taller than me.  And THAT will be no easy task either.

It will happen, of course.  You know what they say about a puppy with big paws.