The Light Up Kind.

As is customary, Turner's Christmas list grew as the season came and went. In November he asked for a Thomas the Train book with lights on it. A bit later, he added a request for Lightning McQueen shoes that light up. After a week, he added a Spiderman bike to the list. Next came the Polar Express train. Then, there was a trip to Toys R Us and the entire list shifted. He abandoned the bike and the book and the shoes, and he wanted instead: A Polar Express train, dinosaur stuff, teenage mutant ninja turtle that transforms into a car, a dirt bike, and a Thomas the Train something or other. In flight to Nashville, he reads the SkyMall and finds a ceramic train encircling a Christmas tree designed by Thomas Kinkaid; it made the final piece of the Turner Christmas List. (FYI: I am avoiding the living room simply because I have no idea where to store all of Santa's bounty.)

A few days after Christmas, Turner rekindles his desire for Light Up Lightning McQueen shoes. On our flight back to Tucson, there is a little boy in the airport with shoes that light up and have none other than the old red car himself spread across the side. We have just stepped off the train taking us from Gate A to Gate C in Dallas-Fort Worth airport. Turner is rested after his 2 hour nap on the first plane. He is groggy and quiet still. I am lugging two backpacks, a carry on, my vest and gloves, Turner orange vest, and trying to hold Turner's hand as we approach the escalator. "Mom." He screams. The kind of scream that he always has but is filled with such urgency that never once do you doubt catastrophe looms. 

I drop the carryon and stop, blocking the escalator. "What?"

"Look." He points to a kid stepping off the up escalator. "He has on my shoes. I want shoes just like that Mom. Just like that." He is pointing with vigor, and I rearrange all of our belongings into my two hands. I coax him to our gate listening through our quick lunch and during the nearly fifteen minutes it took us to walk to lunch about all the things that shoes like that could make him do, how they would make him feel, why he thought he should have them, and (of course) lamenting that Santa might have left them in Tucson (which he did not). So, I suggested to Turner that he use his Christmas money to buy the Light Up Lightning McQueen rockstar awesome shoes. I google said shoes and locate them at Payless. 

Turner calls me on his way to school yesterday morning to remind me that we are getting his shoes "after nap and then after snack too." I agree, and I arrive as directed that afternoon. We go to Payless, locate the shoes in all sizes but 11. A very helpful lady offers to measure his foot, and indeed he needs the 11. Turner stuffs his foot into the 10, looks at me longingly and says, "They fit just fine Mom. I can just do this to my toes. See?" He plops his foot in front of me. I feel for his toes. There is no way. 

Helpful Payless woman calls other stores and locates Turner's shoes very inconveniently at 22nd and Kolb (a.k.a., forever away from our house). We get there. In the parking lot Turner heaves his first words since we left the other store, "Finally. I sure hope they still have my shoes." We find them. He puts them on. The saleswoman clips the tags off and Turner starts dancing in the store while I pay. When I grab the bag containing his old shoes, he takes off for the door with lights blazing (it is really dark outside now). We spend thirty minutes in the parking lot of the shoe store dancing, running, jumping, and finding any sort of way to make his shoes twinkle with speed.