Selling (or buying) out...again.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Captain Rex shoes from Stride Rite.

And the black strap/eyeshields light up blue when you walk. Both boys got a pair today. I was pushing hard for sweatshop running shoes from Nike, but they loved these soooooo much that I just gave in. Dan got a Clone Wars lunchbox for school, too. Sigh.

Johnny knew right away that he wanted the Captain Rex shoes and nothing else. He tried them on, loved them, and gamely followed his brother around the store on his many test runs; Dan tested seven pairs of possible purchases before he, too, finally settled on the Captain Rex shoes.

Those test runs were a joy to watch--though I felt bad making the salesgirl fetch six pairs of shoes that we all knew he would reject in favor of Captain Rex. He would back waaay up and go sprinting earnestly around the shoe section, faking left, then right, and finally charging up and stopping in front of us in a pose like this:

photo courtesy of ragamala.net

...which he would hold for a couple of seconds before rising and giving his verdict. We were the only customers at the time, and the other salesgirl, with apparently nothing else to do, wandered casually over and watched him silently, smiling.