A little pair of shoes

Through almost 4 years of having children, there are very few THINGS of theirs that I have loved or cherished enough to want to keep for posterity. Blankets, little outfits and baby toys have all been adorable and fun, but I’m happy to pass them along to other new babies. The orange Crocs, however, have become somewhat of an icon for Peanut.

And not just for me – family members and friends have been talking about The Orange Crocs since Peanut donned them last summer. In fact, one of my neighbors just mentioned them the other day, as in, “I still think shoes don’t get any cuter than Peanut’s orange Crocs.”

The acquisition of The Orange Crocs is not the reason they have become iconic. I sent L on a spur-of-the-moment errand on a warm day in May to try to find some “Croc-offs” for Peanut. I wanted Croc-offs because I didn’t want to pay the full price for the real Crocs, when Peanut was still in that phase of outgrowing clothes every week. L came home with orange real Crocs, saying he couldn’t find any Croc-offs in her size (a plausible story). They were orange because that was the only pair there was.

When I saw The Orange Crocs for the first time, I reverted to pre-motherhood and actually did the high-pitched “awww, how cute!” That is how sweet they were. Little did I know at the time, The Orange Crocs would have that effect on every single person who saw them from then on.
Peanut also was uncharacteristically drawn to them. She had just turned 1, but that girl knew some influential shoes when she saw them. She insisted on wearing The Orange Crocs all the time, and she cried when we took them off.

The Orange Crocs went lots of places last summer: the backyard, countless parks, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, the pool. Peanut put a lot of miles on them. And everywhere she went, people talked to her about her shoes. She could barely say “shoes,” but she was lovin’ the attention hers brought. From old men to tween girls, people literally stopped in their tracks to say, “Look at her Crocs!” or “I love your shoes!” And we would hear the conversation continue as we passed on by, “Have you ever seen Crocs that little?” and “Those are the cutest Crocs I’ve ever seen.”

It was a sad day last fall when the weather got too cold for The Orange Crocs. I knew they wouldn’t fit her again, and I knew that no pair of Crocs, no matter how little, could ever compare to The Orange Crocs. They embodied the spirit that was my 1-year-old summertime Peanut.

I have put The Orange Crocs in a closet. I don’t know if I can bring myself to sell them at the garage sale I’m planning. In the meantime, this summer she is wearing purple hand-me-down Crocs from Jellybean. She loves the penguin Jibbitz she got for Christmas, and she still refuses to take them off, but that hasn’t stopped her from asking about The Orange Crocs.