Kidding Around: Featuring Your Feet

The prompt for Day 5 of Kidding Around suggested photographing your favorite summer footwear, drawing by holding a marker between your toes, and/or designing a new type of shoe. None of those really appealed to Trevor, so we chose to do some footprint art. Trevor decided to make two footprint critters - a ladybug and a bee. I helped him trace his foot, first on red cardstock and then on yellow. He cut out both shapes, glued one to side of the notebook, and then used a black colored pencil to add details. Finally, he used the same colored pencil to add speech bubbles.

I wanted to make a moose or a reindeer. I got out brown cardstock, traced my foot, and cut it out. Immediately, I noticed a problem. My foot was not much smaller than the 7" x 10" notebook. There would definitely not be room for antlers. My planned antlers became the floppy ears of a dog. I colored his eyes and nose with a black marker, then cut tiny strips of black cardstock to use as whiskers.  

I used the facing page to journal about my feet. The fact that I couldn't fit a moose on the page reminded me of the (literal) ups and downs my feet went through during and after pregnancy. For about 20 years, my feet were a perfect size 6. It was extremely convenient. And then, at age 33, I got pregnant and my feet started to go up, up, up. By the 7th month of my pregnancy, due to severe edema, I literally could not put my feet into anything but flip flops.... size 11.5 flip flops. By month 8, even those were leaving marks on my feet. I avoided shoes whenever possible. Here I am at the baby shower my coworkers gave me. I didn't wear shoes.  

I'd been briefly hospitalized for severe edema by this point and was ordered to sleep with my feet elevated 30 inches. (Measure it - and then try it. It's ridiculously difficult to sleep like this.) I would wake up 6-8 pounds lighter in the morning than when I went to bed and my feet were noticeably smaller. But an hour into my day and my feet were bulging out of their size 11.5 flip flops.  

When I gave birth, my feet shrunk down so rapidly that I couldn't wear any of the shoes I'd bought during the pregnancy without them falling off... nor could I get into my pre-pregnancy shoes. So frustrating. Now, 7 years later, my feet measure a size 6... and I still can't get them into my old shoes. Or any size 6 shoes. I have them measured a couple times a year and they are definitely a 6, but I can't squeeze my feet into anything smaller than a 7, and usually a 7.5. I've long since given up hope of getting back into my pre-pregnancy shoes, with the exception of a closet full of very expensive ballroom dance shoes that I haven't been willing to get rid of. Doing this journal page made me realize that it is time to accept that my feet will never be what they were before the pregnancy and that it is time to give away all my ballroom shoes. I never would have guessed that Kidding Around would help me acknowledge this body change and motivate me to let go of all of those shoes!