Big Foot

Life Balance: a feat we try to achieve while searching to be the best that we can we, while simultaneously raising our children to do the same. This is the equilibrium in our inner life force whereby our heartbeat matches the divine force that exists all around us. When this life balance peaks, our sense of peace, joy, love and wisdom act as one with our very souls.

What do Eskimos get from sitting on the ice too long?Polaroids.

Funny Fridays. Fun Fridays. TGIF. Whatever we call it, we should think better of it because it's the end of the week. I'd like to have nothing but jokes and laughter on Friday, since life is too short anyway. So I think Friday's column should be about laughing and loving and smirking and joking and rolling on the floor dying with gasps of laughter.

Lots of people can laugh at life, but can never laugh at anything about themselves. Not me. I have been the bunt of bad jokes since puberty struck many moons ago. I grew 6 inches one summer. My bright red hair got dark. My face freckles went away. And my feet....well, they got bigger. And bigger. They suddenly grew to a size 10 1/2.

It was the half size that did me in. Suddenly, I had to really shop for shoes. Now when I do manage to find shoes, I buy every pair that fits that day. You never know when you might next find a pair. Still, the 10 1/2 was manageable. Life went on.

Then I had my first child. Gained a keg size belly and the feet, well, the feet went up to an 11. Still not bad, but more searching needed. Specialty catalogs or Penney's when they had a good day, became the way to go. Then the twins came along. How to say this delicately about the size you grow to when you have twins. Hmm. Well, my doctor explained it at 8 weeks when the sonogram clearly showed "the two heads, " as the sonogram technician so gleefully pointed out. The size I was at 9 months with my first child, the extra large maternity clothes, well, I was that size at 12 weeks with the twins. And kept on expanding. The condo was so big at the 40 week mark, that my belly measured 60 inches. I could put my arm at a 90 degree angle to the belly, and my stomach stuck out to my fingertips.

And the feet? Well, they grew to a 12. A 12. Now it's really a pain to shop for shoes, and at times, I get almost desperate to find a nice pair in my budget. Still, the one good thing about having big feet was my ability to just pick out the biggest shoes in the pile and put them on. Easy, they were always mine. No thinking needed. I always had the biggest foot in the house.

Until about a month ago. My son's feet grew a size. He's a 12 men's. A good extra size and then some to mine. It was weird to have someone Else's shoes I could slip on. I hadn't been able to do that for decades. I felt like a little kid playing dress-up.

And my "throw on the biggest shoes in the pile" theory. Well, it backfired on me last Friday. There I was, walking across the driveway into work and I looked down. Grass stained sneakers. Not mine. Not even close.

Shoot. I wore my sons sneaks to work. Oh well. Everyone has a good laugh. At least it wasn't the pair with skeletons on them!

Maybe I can wear those sneaks for Halloween!