Shimmie shimmie shoes..... for rent

Many hundreds of years ago, when The Husband and I were child-free, my sister and her The Husband were cooperative enough to provide me with a cool little nephew and Godson. My plan for my life with children was to enjoy, bask in the adoration, and spoil spoil spoil my little nieces and nephews. Always, ALWAYS, with the option to turn around and hand them back over to a more responsible party capable of meeting all those tedious and un-fun needs. In other words, back to Mom and Dad. Or someone. Someone else.

Part of the spoiling available to a double -income- no- kid family, is expensive things that are ridiculous for a child to have. So the family who is child- free is able to give gifts that are impractical but, really really cool. Such as, a pair of Nike *ahem* running shoes for a child just about one year old.

So impractical were these shoes, but so so oh so cute. Obscenely expensive, I remember they were around $40.00. I just could not get over how cute these little shoes were. They are about 3 inches long, dark blue with orange and white. Before I gave them, I used to take them out of the box and play with them a bit. They were just so dang adorable, I swear they smiled back at me! I set them on a counter where I could unintentionally see them every day.

Finally I gave them to my nephew as a random gift of Auntiehood. Then, I became pregnant. Coincidence? No. I think those shoes got my ovaries jumping. Ready to party down. Ready to get up off their lazy tubes and get to work. (my apologizes to any rigid anatomy purists).

Along came Teena and along with Teena's appearance came the complete and total disappearance of nephew- spoiling funds. Actually, the complete and total disappearance of a lot of funds. Most funds. The shoes came to live at my house again, for Teena to wear on her non-walking feet as a baby. Anyway.

My sister and her The Husband decided they wanted me to have another nephew, and Teena another cousin so they set about cooking one up. Only, there was stubbornness encountered. Stubbornness encountered that would become explained once next nephew put in his appearance. Now I may be taking some liberties with the actual facts (and many liberties with grammar), but as I remember it, my sister and I had a conversation about those little Nike shoes and happy ovaries and shoo-wop doo-wop, along came next nephew. Then came Genea and suddenly there were a lot of kids running around our parents house on Thanksgiving.

And yet, my sister and her The Husband decided again that they wanted me to have just one more niece or nephew. They had bought a big house you see, and had bedrooms with no one in them. Clearly that was unacceptable, so they again set out to cook up another baby. Every *ahem* appointment was kept for 2 years with no little biscuit joining the meeting.

Suddenly one day, in a land much further north, an Auntie was cleaning out her closet. The Auntie had not done this in a dreadfully long time however things had started to move out of this closet by themselves in the night and the situation had become dire. The Auntie (that's me) came across the adorable pair of little baby Nike shoes. Soooooo so cute! I remembered that my sister was diligently having appointments in order to provide me with the next niece or nephew and I decided to set those little shoes aside and send them to her. For inspiration. For her ovaries. And whatever else might benefit from some inspiration.

But I never got a chance. Because she called me a few days ago to say that she is pregnant!

It's the shoes.

Now being as we in this house are now a family of two- kids- one- income, there is no money for expensive ridiculous little things therefore I am willing to rent out the mojo of my Shimmie Shimmie Fertility Nike's. So, who is going to be first?

And of course, congratulations to my sister and her new baby on the way! I'm going to be an Auntie again!