Krista Cogan & Hilda Hugelmann

You put girl shoes on a boy? Careful, that's what messed up Hemingway...

What store did you go to? I've had reasonable luck with boys' shoes at K-Mart and Target...

But you are correct that there are way more cute selections in girls *everything* than boys, clothes especially but also toys and furniture and such. It may be that our definition of cute is too girl-centric, though. I'm sure someone out there thinks Spiderman is cute.

Also, you may or may not recall, but when my kids were little I declared our house a commerical cartoon free zone, refusing to have the likes of Barney, Tweety Bird, Snoopy etc. on the kids' stuff. That lasted until they were old enough to express their own preferences, sigh.

My sister almost always has really good luck at Target for my 3 year old nephew...Also, she has recently found that going to Dick's Sporting Goods at this time of year has some pretty good sales. She got my nephew New Balance sneakers for 18.99, while that's a little pricey, she bought them a touch big and they are lasting much longer than other shoes she has purchased for him in the past. Just thought I'd pass it along :)

Can't they make baby boy shoes cute, too? Do they all really have to have Spider-Man or that Cars character on them? There were 2 or 3 cute boy styles (as opposed to dozens of cute girls' styles), but...

2. There were almost no shoes in his size! You'd think there'd be an even distribution, but NO! There were exactly 3 pairs of shoes in a 6, one in a 6 1/2, and a few 7's, which really are too big. None of them were cute.

Minus the baby part, I have the same problem with shoes. Girls get really cool shoes and all I can get are styles that are 60 years old or giant puffy white sneakers that belong on a drunken 20 year old frat boy. It really depresses me some times.

I'm totally with you here. Our kids really _do_ have mutant ogre feet (Bob's). Elizabeth's are the best, because she doesn't have a ridiculously high instep like the other two. Victoria will never wear "pretty shoes" in her life. I can only buy them shoes at Stride-Rite, where they all run XW (XXW as toddlers) -- and Stride-Rite makes shoes in toddler-appropriate rectangular shapes, so that's saying something. Basically, I have to set shoe money aside since they run $35-$55 a pair for shoes that they'll be out of in no time. And, of course, I have no alternatives for shopping. Gack. Our kids have million dollar feet.

The good thing is that, for a long time, you can get away with one pair of shoes for a boy. That's assuming you can live with some type of utilitarian walking-style shoe or that you can live with just tennis shoes. Alexander has worn the same style of brown leather ones with a heavy flexible sole for the past few years. They're nice enough for church, but sturdy, and he's too young for a suit yet (IMO). Victoria, OTOH, had three pairs of shoes at age 2: black utilitarian Mary Janes (in the same vein as Alexander's), then white dress shoes for Easter/summer, and sandals. It's going to be hard to avoid multiple pairs for the girls for long, I think.

That's the flip side of the "girls' clothes are cuter" issue: Girls also have so many "shades" of dress. Most boys (men, too) can get away with three types of clothes: play clothes, preppy/dress down clothes (casual Friday for children?), and a suit (which you can wait a while for without people thinking you're a bad parent!). Girls (and women), well, you are a woman, you know how that goes. Heck, I had levels of dressiness in my garb! (Because it wouldn't have been any fun otherwise...)

As for the Spiderman issue, I'm with Arianna. My kids have next to no clothes with licensed characters on them, and the very few they've had have been gifts from grandparents. I don't see why my kids should be walking advertisements while I get to pay extra for the privilege! It is hard to find cute stuff without the licensing, though. And now we've finally arrived at the point where Alexander likes the idea of having Cars on his clothes. Previously he had no preference. Of course, we're rapidly getting to the boys sizes where pretty much any licensed characters would be preferable to the obnoxious and frequently rude comments that are on most kids' t-shirts these days.

For clothes, you might want to check out Garanimals at Wal-Mart. The toddler and boys' stuff is pretty cute without being either sickeningly sweet or looking like a teenager should wear it. The other thing I do with Alexander is to buy clothes (shirts and sweaters especially) in bigger sizes when I see them. With the girls I'm sure there will be something cute to buy two years from now. With Alexander I'm doubtful. I have no compunction about buying him shirts in a size 7 or 8 and socking them away for a year or two.

Anyhow, I am equally annoyed at the shoe/clothing situation and the disparity between the sexes.
--Pamela