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

• I have a strong dislike of clothing with characters on them and didn't want my children to wear them.
• My oldest daughter fell in love with a pair of Frozen shoes, and I ended up buying her a pair.

I had a clear vision of how my daughter would dress — dresses with peter pan collars or smocked detail, big bows perched on her head, and Mary Jane shoes. It most certainly did not include anything with characters like Elsa, Peppa Pig or Ariel on them.

At the top of my absolutely not list were any sort of light up shoes. I would see kids wearing these shoes, which are designed to not match absolutely anything and to be incredibly ugly, and visibly cringe.

Before kids, I couldn't figure out why parents would buy light up shoes or character clothing for their children. Honestly, I found them a bit tacky.

Heading into parenthood I thought it would be easy to avoid having my daughter wear any character clothing, since I'd be the one doing the shopping. I thought we could satisfy any character cravings with dress up clothes or at worst with underwear that no one would see.

I was wrong.

Not only does my daughter have several clothing items emblazoned with her favorite characters, but I've willingly spent money on them.

I was not prepared for the joy character items bring my daughter

My daughter loves clothes and gets excited when any new item gets delivered. But the day her new Ariel bathing suit arrived was a level of excitement that I've never seen before.

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.