The baby sqwarked in its carriage, discontented shrieks, uncomfortable noises like the scrapping of chalk or the dragging of a chair. It was duly lifted out of the pram, turned, burped, given things to play with, each knocked out of mothers hands.
Finally a pair of little pink booties, the plastic soles tapped together lightly like a child's clapping, did the trick. Each time the shoes clacked together, the baby blinked it's blonde-lashed eyelids. The mother smiled, reminded again of the beautiful simplicity of a child amused, by nothing more humorous than a shoe. She smiled at the baby's lips curling into a gurgling laughter at the sound and colour and movement of the shoes. The baby took the boots into her own hands, began to tap away like her mother, a tappa tappa tappa. Again, the mother smiled, at the unadulterated joy of a child. But then the child, true to the unpredictable form of children, began to bang the shoes, harder and harder, her tiny chubby arms moving in a veritable baby frenzy, until one shoe was thrown, cast quite an impressive distance for a creature which couldn't talk or walk and so far had only shown a propensity for shitting and eating. And then the mother frowned, disappointed that reality had come crashing in, reminding her that children are in fact just that, and quietly annoyed at her darling girl for spoiling her own adorable cliche of a baby smiling at the sound of a shoe.