What's wrong with blue shoes?

I don't claim to be a fashion maven. If you see my "Mother of a 3-year old" ensemble on any given day, that point will be self-evident. Nor am I normally neurotic about how my three-year old daughter should dress, either. Yet this morning, I found myself in a ridiculous debate with Maya about her choice of footwear, insistent that she understand some basic fashion rules. It basically went like this:


Maya: Mommy, I want to wear my new blue shoes!

Me: Not today, Maya. I've got you in your new pink and black outfit, see? Navy blue shoes don't go with pink and black.

Maya: But my blue shoes have pink flowers!

Me: Yes, I see the flowers are pink, but the shoes are blue. Not black. See your leggings? These are black. See your shirt? It's pink and black.

Maya: The blue looks like black.

Mommy: They are close, Maya, but they aren't the same color!

Maya: But Mommy, what's WRONG with BLUE shoes?!


Just as I was about to force a choice of pink or black shoes on her, Maya's disappointed expression and quite reasonable question stopped me. Indeed, what WAS wrong with blue shoes?

Who cares what she was wearing? It wasn't picture day at school. She wasn't going to a birthday party or special outing. Why not give her a say in her outfit and just make her happy?

I relented, helping her into the blue shoes. She beamed and modeled her new ensemble.

This scene left me wondering, am I really that compulsive a person? I don't see myself as the kind of Mom who has to have everything "just so." One glance at my piles of laundry and the still unmade beds confirms that point. So what was going on here?

I thought about the past week and its challenges. There had been the usual mad mambo around work and home, plus some minor dramas with a sick kid and a car that died. Yet there was also the big drama: a frantic call from my brother, a natural gas explosion in my Mom's neighborhood, homes and lives lost. Our family was blessed: Mom came out of this disaster OK, as did her home. And yet...perhaps when something happens so out of our control, we fixate on even the most mundane ways we have to create some kind of order in our lives -- like driving one's daughter mad insisting on matching shoes?

Minutes later, I managed to genuinely laugh as Maya messed up her just-combed hair to show me her "moustache." I guess the past week's events also helped me put things into perspective, because I get it now: exploding gas main: big stuff. Your kid's mismatched shoes and messy hair: small stuff.