In 2010, Nick started kindergarten. When back to school shopping, Nick asked for light up shoes. Actually, he might have begged. Reluctantly, we bought them, although I was convinced the lights would give out well before the shoes were worn out (while my memory is fuzzy, I think I might have been right about that one). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Naturally, as parents, we wanted to buy shoes that were a bit more sturdy, shoes that might last at least until his feet grew. Yet, he was so excited to own shoes that created a light show with every step, we had a hard time denying him. Before we tried any on, I asked, “why”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Why do you want light up shoes, Nicholas?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And he told me, he looked me straight in the face, saying “I need <\/strong>them. I don’t want <\/strong>them. Mommy, any day wearing light up shoes will be the ‘best day ever<\/em>‘!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I questioned how light up shoes could have such an effect, he explained that no one could possibly have a bad day with light up shoes on their feet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Light up shoes make you happy! Light up shoes make everyone happy! They smile at you AND talk with you!” <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, we bought a pair of light up shoes, probably the only pair of his life. And a few days later, Nick went off to kindergarten with a sparkle of blue and green LED lights in every step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it made me think as I went to work that same day, what did I have that enabled me to have the ‘best day ever<\/em>!’? I didn’t own light up shoes; in fact, they probably would have been a violation of the dress code. I did, however, have an amazing family – a handsome husband and two beautiful boys. I loved my job. I had wonderful friends. And I was happy. I could smile at people and maybe they’d smile back, then we would talk. We could share life. I didn’t need light up shoes to have a great day (turns out, Nick didn’t either). All on my own I could choose to have the “best day ever”<\/em> every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The older we get, we all learn that objects do not make the day the best day ever, we do. But, looking back, I’m glad we bought Nick the shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Originally written by Nick’s mom in 2011, with updates in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2010, Nick started kindergarten. When back to school shopping, Nick asked for light up shoes. Actually, he might have begged. Reluctantly, we bought them, although I was convinced the lights would give out well before the shoes were worn out (while my memory is fuzzy, I think I might have been right about that one). Naturally, as parents, we … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,20,19],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-best-day-ever","tag-kindergarten","tag-shoes","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicholasrcordreyfoundation.org\/staging\/2454\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicholasrcordreyfoundation.org\/staging\/2454\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicholasrcordreyfoundation.org\/staging\/2454\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicholasrcordreyfoundation.org\/staging\/2454\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicholasrcordreyfoundation.org\/staging\/2454\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nicholasrcordreyfoundation.org\/staging\/2454\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":486,"href":"https:\/\/nicholasrcordreyfoundation.org\/staging\/2454\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions\/486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicholasrcordreyfoundation.org\/staging\/2454\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicholasrcordreyfoundation.org\/staging\/2454\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicholasrcordreyfoundation.org\/staging\/2454\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}