What do you think? Perfect for Christmas cards?
Today we spent at the mall. We had a late start but managed to hit the one mall store Charles has been fantasizing about for a week or two — Legoland (because Josh and Jake went and tested it for us). It was a bit pricey to get in but we ended up staying there till early afternoon. We did a few of the tour things, and Corwin and I caught the “4-D” movie which was interesting. Most of the rest of the time was spent in the big construction room. It had a number of ramps where kids could try out wheeled vehicles. Corwin worked on one for a while but never quite got it right. I think they should have had more wheels, given the ramps, because kids were constantly scrounging for them. Charles built a few things, but wasn’t nearly as thrilled as he thought he would be. Alice had a lot of fun, doing a little bit of building but spending most of her time in a little playscape in that room. Charles said he wanted to leave a couple of times, but got distracted so he can’t have been having too terrible a time.
Until we got to the store. Everything Charles wanted was way too expensive, and he wouldn’t accept a compromise of a ½ pound of the Legos™ of his choice. Meanwhile, Alice got a pink foam sword and I think Corwin got something, so Charles declared the entire expedition a failure because “you wouldn’t let me get anything!”.
After that we went to lunch an upscale noodle shop, which I quite enjoyed. They had some very pricey but excellent ginger ale and noodles. Mom ordered some sort of curry thing which turned out to be spicy and bland. Moral: if you go to a noodle shop, order the noodles.
It was 3 or so before we were done with lunch, having gone way past lunch time at Legoland. It was therefore time for the actual mall. Naturally, we went to the Lego™ store there first. Charles got a kit, as did Corwin. The kit Alice wanted was not in stock, but they said if we paid for it they’d ship it to us at no charge. Then it was time for Mom to get stuff for Alice. We hit the Disney store to get Alice a Disney Princess jacket so she’d have a light jacket for fall that wasn’t handed down from her brothers. Then it was Hannah Anderson for cute fall dresses. For Alice! Mom thought about going to a Mommy clothing store, but the lure of IKEA1 was too much. We spent the rest of the day there, because naturally having had a late lunch and it being just late afternoon, we had to have food. Alice and Charles got to play in the play room but Corwin was forced to march with Mom. My generous offer to stay and make sure the little ones were OK was denied as well. We shopped for a good long while, although Mom didn’t get much stuff. Instead, Charles got “Big D”, a 3 foot long stuffed plush dolphin. This meant that Charles had along for vacation Big D, Sharky, Timmy, and “Cowy”, his mad cow disease bacteria. Mom had tried to prevent Charles from acquiring another plush cetacean by avoiding the aquarium but for once IKEA came through for me. Charles was so happy that he was willing (as the price for Big D) to say “Mom, I am glad we went to IKEA today”. And after all that, Mom ended up with just a few new bowls and a seat cushion.
To finish off the trip, we picked the cursed check out line. Only two groups ahead of us, but the first had some mysterious problem that involved long discussions with the check out guy. The next group had a credit card problem which took running multiple cards through along with trips to the car to fetch the cards to resolve. Everyone else got nice snacks while I waited in line. But, that’s the kind of stoic, uncomplaining Dad I am.
After that we trudged back to the hotel to watch Olympics.
1 IKEA being the real reason Mom planned the trip. Just like Legoland for Charles. Lucky for Charles that the Legoland Mall was just down the road from IKEA or he might have not had his dreams destroyed by the bitter reality of limited parental budgets.