Readying for a holiday trip, it felt like we forgot something

By Stephanie Johnson

The Bulletin

Do you ever feel like you’re forgetting something important, but you can’t peg exactly what that is? I heard it gets worse with age or being overwhelmed, or a mix of both. It seems like the more you rush, the more you forget. Well, I experience this all the time, but recently, over the holidays, one instance stood out.

We were on our way to meet my parents in Gruene, Texas, for a nice meal by the river. It was a little chilly outside, so I made sure to pack us all hoodies and beanies to ensure we wouldn’t get cold.

I grabbed some last- minute gear to put in the car, and my husband buckled our son in the car. I assumed he was completely ready to go for the day since he was buckled in, but I was wrong.

We are running early, which is great. That rarely happens when you have a small child. We are usually the late ones. My husband noticed all the jackets and cold weather gear that I had brought, and he laughed about it. He wondered why I was so over-prepared all the time.

I find it always better to be over prepared than needing things and not having them with you at the time. Being over prepared is the job of a mom, it’s what we do.

Well, I looked back and noticed our son was barefoot. I looked at my husband, surely he had just put his shoes in the car instead of putting them on his feet. When I asked where the shoes were, he thought I was joking. When I asked again, that’s when he knew I wasn’t joking.

Then, I thought he was playing a trick on me. Turns out, neither one of us were joking around, and our son had no shoes for this nice meal by the river in Gruene.

The famous “No shoes, no shirt, no service” line kept running through my head. We were almost there, where we were going to find a toddler-sized shoe. They are usually the hardest type of shoes to find anywhere you go.

Then, just like that, we exited and saw an Academy. It was a couple of days before Christmas, and the parking lot was packed, but we had gotten lucky.

My husband made a run-in for any toddler shoes size 10, and he had a budget of anything under $30 that he will actually wear for longer than today. It was going to be an early Christmas present. About 15 minutes later, I texted him to make sure he’s O.K. He found some Christmas Crocs with an “Elf” Christmas-movie theme. They were on sale for $30. This was a “no”; that was limited wear, and once Christmas was over, I wouldn’t want him to wear those in public.

So, my husband goes back to the shoe aisles, which were apparently demolished from people shopping for the holidays, and he says he found something and was in the check-out line. Remember, this was a couple of days before Christmas, so the line was long.

 We went from being early, to running about 20 minutes late. Finally, he comes out of Academy with some Under Armour shoes, blue and orange, on sale for $25, toddler size 10, and they received instant approval from son and mom.

It reminded me of the Grocery Store game, only it was the “Find a pair of shoes in this exact size, price, and as fast as you can so we aren’t late”. Honestly, I’m not sure I could have done as well.

As we rolled up to Gruene, and put his new shoes on, while still forgetting socks, no one knew the trouble we just encountered, and we were basically running into the restaurant.

 Finally, we arrive and find a beautiful table, right next to the river, with the trees above our heads and birds chirping.

We pulled it off without anyone noticing. “Like my new shoes, Grandma?” our son asked. “I just got them. My mommy and daddy forgot to put on my shoes.”

Well, almost without anyone noticing. I’ll never forget to bring a pair of his shoes again.

“I’m cold”, he complained. I had three jackets to offer him. I was prepared for that one.