The Minority

My husband and I spend a lot of time on a college campus because of his job. We see lots of minorities.  My kids also attend head start and the elementary school in town that has the most diversity in it. It kind of skews our view of our community. Sometimes, however, we see very clearly that my kids are in the 5% of the community that is not white. Our daughter goes to dance class in a nearby community that is made up almost exclusively of Mennonites. My daughter is literally the only child with brown hair - no joke. They are all blondes except for the one redhead. I wonder if any of the kids notice. I wonder if any of the parents notice. I wonder if anyone else wonders. Today my boys started soccer - that is a little bit better. At least 2 or 3 kids on each team are minorities, so my kiddos only stand out because they are tiny, not because of their race. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the kids' head start classes are filled with lots of ethnicities - in fact, my daughter has only one white child in her class. Interesting, isn't it?

Shoes

Our little one wears orthotics. His ankles are turned in, and his fleet are incredibly flat and wide, so he came to us with special shoes and orthotics...and, in an unsurprising fashion, no paperwork about it all.

Well, he finally outgrew his "shoes from the doctor," so I bought a new pair of shoes from the store and tried to put his orthotics in them. Fail. Then I bought a better, more expensive pair of shoes online. Fail. So I took him to the local shoe store. We live in a small town. There is one shoe store - literally, and I just imagine the shoes will be ridiculously expensive. When we went in, we found out he had grown TWO shoe sizes since he has arrived! I guess that goes along with the TWO inches he grew over the summer (from April to August). Whoa. That would be why the next size up wasn't cutting it.

The salesman was VERY knowledgable about feet and shoes. He explained the foot thing (it is hereditary), the orthotics, where I will need to go to buy new ones someday, and how to buy shoes that will fit my kiddo well. It was great! So I called my husband to have him bring the other two down - just to make sure they were wearing the right sizes and didn't have any special foot needs. Thankfully they were in good shape. Another adventure!