Tomorrow is my birthday! I’ll be turning 28, but plan to party like I’m 18 all over again! I realize that 28 is still young, but when you have had 3 babies in 2 years, old age creeps in on you, hard and fast! I’ve been feeling a little down about the whole thing… not about being a year older, but about feeling 20 years past my prime. The solution is simple; take one night to myself, where I can be Geri instead of Mommy, dress up, act wild, and enjoy myself.

Before I had children, I had a pretty exciting night life. My friends and I partied Thursday thru Sunday, hitting a different club each night. We’d wear short, short skirts and high, high heels…a far cry from the worn out jeans and sneakers that are my current uniform.

Back then, whenever I bought a new pair of shoes, I put them through “The Heel Test”. Wearing 4″ heels around the shoe store for 2 minutes, while you Ooo and Aahh about how sexy they make your legs look, is not a true measure of how practical these shoes are in real life. Just because you can walk the length of the store without snapping an ankle, does not mean that you can walk 6 blocks from the parking lot to the club, wait 20 minutes in line to get in, stand at the bar for another eternity, then dance the night away. My test was simple… I’d put the shoes on in my car, walk across the parking lot into my building, then up 3 flights of stairs to my apartment. If I could make it to the front door without crying, the shoes made the cut. If not, I would kindly slip them off, put them back in the box and return them to the store. I liked to be sexy, but nothing was worth losing a toe.

Life has changed since then, but nevertheless, the new shoes that I bought yesterday needed to undergo a test. I figured that if I could cook dinner, wash the dishes and bathe the kids, all while wearing 4″ heels, I could do anything! And so it began…. 5 minutes into “The Test”, my toes went numb, a few minutes later my ankle buckled, and I got shooting pains in my arches, as I squatted at the edge of the tub.

This is not good. The shoes failed, and miserably! Now I’m faced with a dilemma. I can either return them, in exchange for a pair of blah black ballet flats, or suck it up, put on my brave face and wear the sexy shoes, even though they make my eyes water with every step.

I’m going for the latter! I’m going to live it up, and pay for it later. It’s only one day… my birthday!

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