New shoes?!.

When do you know that you are losing your mind? When you do really silly things like buy brand new shoes for Scout Camp.

Let me first admit that this IS NOT THE FIRST TIME that I have done such a thing. I have done this before, but at least the first time I did it I was at least half sane. At least at that time I had already bought the shoes because the child (Andrew) needed the shoes and that is what he had.

This time, however, my sanity can be questioned…I think…

I think I am still being entirely reasonable. Maybe. It still seems crazy, but at least I had a good reason.

When you have growing children, the timing just cannot always be accounted for. This is exactly what happened.

We had this perfect plan for what we would do for shoes for Philmont. We planned it out and we put the plan into action as the dates came into play. It was working just fine…until this past weekend…

The plan was that the boys (Ben included) would all get their new hiking boots over Spring Break so that there would be ample time to break them in before leaving for Philmont. This would allow them to wear them on preparation camping trips and hikes. It would also allow them to wear them to school on a regular basis and just wear them regularly to break them in. We had done this before for regular Scout Camp and this worked nicely. That gave the boys a good 3 months to break the boots in with regular wearing.

Ben would get new tennis shoes as needed with his fitness routines as this was putting him new shoes on a fairly regular basis. He has lost over 70 pounds to get ready for the Philmont trip and this has put him through several pairs of tennis shoes in the process. He would wear the most recent pair of “old” tennis shoes as his “around camp” Philmont shoes when not wearing his hiking boots.

Kyle got a new pair of running shoes that were fitted nicely for him at Fleet Feet as I felt he would benefit from their services with his feet and his arches. We did spent a bit more on these shoes than would have been the norm for back to school shoes but Kyle had not gotten new tennis shoes in a couple of years simply because his feet had not really grown very much in that long. His feet really did need the extra arch support that these shoes offered so I did not feel so bad about spending a little bit more to get him a good pair of shoes. He had been complaining about his feet hurting which is what lead me to take him in for a better fit in the first place. The plan for him was that he would still wear his old tennis shoes as his “around camp” Philmont shoes. It was not that he had out grown those shoes, it was that he was doing more walking and other more active things were better fitting shoes were needed. His old shoes still fit.

Then we got to this weekend. I do not remember what we were doing, but we were doing something that required Kyle to wear his old shoes and not hiking boots (which is more of a normal footwear for my boys). Kyle went to put his old tennis shoes on and he was struggling to get them on. His foot had grown a little bit and his older shoes were a little too snug after all. We had bought his newer shoes a little larger to allow for growth and just a bit better fit.

Well there went the whole idea of him wearing his old tennis shoes as “around camp” shoes at Philmont. He cannot wear shoes that are too small for him. It is just not going to be good for him. We have us a little problem here. We have practically brand new running shoes that we paid a good chunk of change for and a pair of hiking boots and no extra shoes for him any more.

I am looking at these really nice practically brand new running shoes on his feet and I look at Ben and I just say, “He is not wearing those on the mountain. He is not going to go destroy those.” If anyone has had a boy, a Boy Scout, and had them go to Scout Camp, they know good and well that their tennis shoes come back as nasty as nasty gets. If they do not, they simply have not had enough fun. Shoes that have been to Scout Camp are just gross if they are doing it right.

So we went and solved our problem. I told the child to Academy and we bought him some “disposable” tennis shoes. It is almost crazy to think about. I told him to pick cheap shoes. I was dead serious about “cheap.” He was picking the $40 range and I gave him the “are you kidding me?!.” look. He got the hint and was looking at the $30 shoes. I gave him the “are you still kidding me?!” look but allowed him to try the shoes on. I am not completely irrational after all.

As he was trying on those shoes I was walking up and down the aisle looking at all the different shoes available. I was especially looking for all the clearance tags. I am so glad that I did because I was able to find these beauties! They were the same brand as the ones that were about $30 but these were on clearance for $14.99 and I have to admit this was a bit more my price range for a pair of shoes that I was just going to let my child get as dirty as their heart is content with. I even told him that I did not care if I ever saw them again. I simply asked him if they were comfortable enough for him to do some light walking in around camp and stuff. If so, I was good with that.

So there you have it, I lost my mind long enough to buy a brand new pair of shoes for my child to destroy in order to preserve a pair of much nicer shoes.