If the shoe fits... and even if it doesn't.

The Badoo has adored shoes since birth. She was my only baby who wore shoes prior to walking, simply because even at 6 months it was obvious that she loved them. I bought her a little pair of 'pre-walkers' and they were never off her feet. She graduated to her sister's shoes as soon as she could stand, worked her way through my collection of flatties not long after and then before she could run she was in her Zia's sky-high stilettos which even 13 sizes too big she walks in better than I ever could.  At almost-two she insists that everyone around her is wearing shoes (she heads off and gets you a pair, brings them over and puts them on you. Doesn't matter if they're not actually yours). She carries extra shoes wherever she goes and is not fussed if she is wearing a different shoe on each feet and on the wrong feet. She changes her shoes a minimum of ten times a day. She wears shoes to bed.

So it comes as no surprise to learn that while viewing the Biennale exhibition on Cockatoo Island with her daddy on Saturday (mum was burning up the tarmac on the Snowy Mountains Highway at the time) she decided to help herself to a shoe that was part of one of the exhibitions. LOML said her look was one of utter concentration as she carefully tried this way and that to manoeuvre the shoe out from under the guard rail. She was beside herself when she was dragged away. My shoe, she screeched, MY SHOE! (My art, the artist shrieked, MY ART!)

Back when I had normal-size feet (a dainty size 9) I too had a glorious shoe obsession. Prior to pregnancy stretching the ligaments in my very high-arched feet one and a half sizes (up to a, gasp, no really, not joking, 10 1/2) I owned over 30 pairs of loveliness collected from all over the world. The best thing about coveting shoes was that no matter how much my weight fluctuated, a beautiful shoe still fit. Little works of art, lined up by colour and giving such pleasure.

Now I'm shopping for shoes at the chemist.

But, no mind. The Badoo is here. And she loves my old shoe collection even more than I do.