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Libby shows off her "glass" slippers!

Posted February 17, 2009 by Mary Dixon Lebeau

Like every fairy tale princess, our Libby had a pair of glass slippers.

Well, okay, maybe not glass. After all, she was only four at the time, and -- even though they match with practically everything -- glass would be so impractical for a princess who liked to run after her royal steed -- er, basset hound -- or dance to the lilting refrains of ballroom music (if ballroom music sounded like Hannah Montana's latest hit).

So the slippers weren't glass. In fact, they were rubber -- Crocs in the color of pink cotton candy, with a pearly purple strap around the ankle. But to our princess, these were shoes of wonder, and she adorned them with plastic jewels of deep blue, bright green, and shimmery yellow which sparkled when she swirled elegantly to "The Best of Both Worlds." They were grand shoes, to be sure, and the commoners (well, neighbors) always admired them as the little girl pranced through the kingdom of Shields Avenue.

But then, it happened. It was inevitable that it would. One morning I awoke to the wail, "Momma! My glass slipper is gone!"

Okay, not quite the wake up call this queen mum was expecting. Still, I hurried to her royal chambers -- the room my husband and I had decorated in green and blue with John Lennon animals, five months before our home was invaded by this creature of pink and purple. Still sleepy-eyed, Libby was sobbing as she inspected the shoes hung in their pockets on the back of the chamber door.

"Look! It's gone," she repeated as she pointed to the pocket which usually held her special Crocs. I followed her gaze and saw what she did -- the pocket contained a single pink and purple bejeweled shoe. Just one.

"Now, it couldn't have gone far," I soothed her. "After all, if one is here, the other is usually nearby." But we searched all day, and we called upon the royal hunters (that is, big brothers), but not even the King himself (also known as Daddy) could find that slipper. It was as if she truly lost it fleeing some magical ball we didn't know about. Well, that or else the royal steed (remember the basset hound?) stole it away as the most sparkly of chew toys.

The entire kingdom mourned the loss of the wonderful slipper, and for days the princess wore her red-glittered Dorothy shoes in their place. Oh sure, they were pretty, but they just weren't the same. 

But then, we received our storybook ending. Two days after the Croc went missing, we received a call from our handsome prince (who, in this case, looked a lot like our middle-aged dentist). "I think we have something of yours," he said, adding that a staff member found the slipper in the parking lot, where it must have slipped off while the princess was climbing into her car seat. They weren't sure who it belonged to -- after all, lots of princesses go to him to keep their smiles sparkling and their teeth pearly white. But this morning, a part-time receptionist recognized it, saying she had admired the slippers when Libby wore them in the last time she worked.

We retrieved the slipper, and Libby smiled just like Cinderella as she slid it on her foot. "I love the dentist," she declared, and has brushed faithfully ever since.

If that's not a "happily ever after," then I don't know what is.