Yesterday my 8-year old taught me I was a dummy. Not about everything, just shoes. 

 “Mom," she said, "those are for little kids.”

Oh, um… of course, they are. I knew that. Who didn’t know that?  

It was our annual back-to-school shoe hunt. And at Marshall’s on Route 440, it is a hunt. Parents prowl up and down the aisles, stalking the mate to the left shoe or the right that they found in the wrong box under the wrong sign with the mislabeled price… all to save a couple of bucks for what their kid will outgrow within the year anyway.

Give me the floor and I’ll pontificate about how badly kids shoes are made; constructed to stay intact until actually worn. Rhinestones and sparkles are the lure; get them home and find the sparkles dusting your living room like confectioner’s sugar. And it won’t be long until your child complains that one of the "gems" fell off her shoe so how can she wear them now?   

Just ask yourself: would Queen Elizabeth be caught with an empty space in her tiara? Now, you understand.

Of course, the answer is to buy something ugly, without what I call "frou-frou;" decorative additions like butter cream flowers adorning a cake. But how do you pitch a shoes without any frou-frou to a kid that wants bling?  

That’s the trick, and I discovered the answer, for my child: it’s time.    

That’s right. Endure a few years of picking glitter off your rugs, and searching for lost rhinestones on your knees, but you’ll win in the end.

How?

It’s called "growing up."

My daughter reminded me of this inevitability yesterday in the shoe aisle at Marshalls. After I’d shown her styles that would have turned her head last year—sparkly, blingy confections—Mom-the-Dummy caught on.   

My child had moved on without me. To stylish simplicity; buckles not bows, adornments preferred by young sophisticates not playground-dwellers. 

It was one of those learning moments, when a parent is forced to  upgrade that parenting software we all have in our heads. Because yesterday’s child has become more like you, in that gown-up sort of way. It’s a bittersweet feeling; seeing the child replaced by someone a bit older, but also a time to revel in the person developing before you. 

How much we learn about our kids in such mundane moments, like shoe-shopping at Marshalls.

Along those same lines, she’s outgrown Children’s Place, the store that’s outfitted her since toddlerhood.

So like vagabonds wandering the desert, we stumbled into Pay Half at Newport Mall, where my daughter taught me her funky "new look," reminiscent of the 70’s glam-rock era, the style of today's pre-teen set.

I admit to some growing pains.

I should have known she’d outgrow Children’s Place. I should  have known the magic of rhinestones would fade. I suppose I did. Yet in spite of those good-byes, it’s a joy to see. 

Parents out there, you know what I mean.