Before having kids, I thought light-up shoes were tacky. Now that I’m a mom, I get it.

I wish I had filmed her reaction — squeals of glee and an insistence that she get changed into the suit that very second. Once she put it on, she refused to take it off, dancing around the house and talking non-stop about how she was going to show all her friends at school.

The only way to describe it was absolute pure unfiltered joy.

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen this type of joy from my daughter. A few months before the Ariel bathing suit, we were in Target. She caught sight of a pair of light up Elsa shoes and audibly gasped.

Normally I would have just cruised past, but we stopped. Her little face lit up and she animatedly started talking about how much she loved the shoes. Something in me shifted. I had said no multiple times before to other character items, so my daughter looked genuinely confused as I put the shoes in our cart.

I just couldn’t say no when a pair of $20 shoes had triggered that level of joy. It’s why I subsequently sought out an Ariel bathing suit because I knew it would make her over the moon.

I was surprised that I get joy from character clothes, too

After seeing the sheer joy the shoes brought her I realized that that level of happiness is hard to find. It’s magical to see something so little, like a $3 Peppa Pig sweatshirt from the consignment store, have such a big effect. It makes me happy to see her so happy and I love hearing her enthusiasm over repping her favorite characters.

I get excited when I see something that I know she’ll absolutely love, and I swear I’m just as giddy as she is when she’s opening the box because I know the reaction that’s on the other side.

As a parent, it’s not my job to make my daughter happy all the time, nor is it my job to cater to every request for something new. I still routinely say no to items that we pass by in the store, but there’s something really special about knowing what she likes and being able to surprise her from time to time.

I never thought I’d be a light up shoe mom, but childhood is fleeting. I’ll begrudgingly admit that the joy they bring my daughter (and me, by proxy) almost makes up for how ugly they are.