Mall...Rats!

I took my kids to the mall today.  To see Santa.

Not the usual one story, dark, depressing mall that we usually go to only for the cheesy rides, the Kernels popcorn and the smoothies...no this is the big, sunshiny two story mall with stores like Aeropostle (I have no idea how to actually pronounce that store therefore I don't go into it), Bath and Body Works, Coach and Fossil.

After were scoured the parking lot for what seemed like an hour I admitted defeat and had to park in a spot just outside of Sears.

Does anyone else have anxiety when parking outside of a department store attached to a mall?  I feel like I will never, ever remember the doors upon which we entered.  And then when it comes to leaving time I panic because doesn't there seem to be about 89 different ways to get in and out of those places?  I have a hard enough time remembering where I parked when I come out of the grocery store let alone a massive mall with not one but TWO huge department stores attached.

I begin muttering to myself repeatedly about how we can't forget where we parked like the crazy woman that I am while unbuckling my littlest...because kids totally care and pay attention to that kind of stuff.

Not really.

In we walked to Sears.  I noted the lingerie section and prayed my boys wouldn't say anything completely inappropriate about the half dressed mannequins.

Whew.  They did not.

And then come anxiety number two...where the hell is the entryway to the mall?!

Luckily we found it with semi-ease and sans perfume assault and on we went to Santa search.

My heart began to drop little by little.  I had a bad, bad feeling.  When I approached the information desk and inquired where our rotund cheery  red-dressed friend might be he said the dreaded words far too happily in my opinion..."Oh Santa's not here today!  No, no.  Just Friday, Saturdays and Sundays.  Yep!  That's right boys!  He's busy getting your presents ready!"

Well there's one thing that the crappy other mall has over this one.  SANTA.

Clearly my disappointment was far more intense about this than my sons because they beelined it to the scary moving stairs...otherwise known to them as, "Excalators."

This was their first time experiencing such a thing.

I know.  Deprived much?

What can I say?  I'm 34 years old and excalators still make me a bit nervous.

I was traumatized as a young girl when my dear Mother took me to the mall and stepped onto one only to leave me behind.  I remember being frozen with fear watching my Mom ascending further and further and further away from me.  Until a sweet lady gently clasped my hand and helped me step bravely onto those scary teethy metally monsterish stairs.  I was once again reunited with my Mummy.

You see how childhood trauma works right there?  This was exactly what I didn't want to happen to my boys.

Well apparently they do not share the same (irrational) fears as me.  Which is and is not a good thing.  They rode those excalators up and down, up and down, up and down.

It became an obsession.

They also ran through the mall, hopping from patterned tile to patterned tile leaving their jackets for me to pick up and dust off.  They ate orange cream ice cream on waffle cones from Purdy's.  The most delicious ice cream I've ever had.

I mean.  They've ever had.

Okay.  So I admit.  I ate some of their ice cream.  It was just because it was going to drip down their cones and onto their arms resulting in a very sticky mess.  It was for the greater good.

As people passed us by while I was licking the ice cream that both my sons had been licking I began to wonder...and asked myself...is this really freaking disgusting or what?  I mean...it really is when you think about it.  But it's not possible that I'm the only Mother in the world that does this.  Right?

Oh whatever.  I don't give a rats ass.  That ice cream was freaking DELICIOUS.

And I'd do it again.

After about 67 more excalator rides, 3 stores visited and 2 hours later I told them it was time to go.

After all that chasing after them while hanging onto their winter jackets and still wearing mine I was roasting like a very large chestnut over a bonfire.

Oh but wait!  I almost forgot something.

I'm POTTY TRAINING YOU GUYS.  

Finley had to go the washroom.

TIME TO PANIC AND RUN WILDLY AROUND FOR THE NEAREST WASHROOM!

We ended up finding one fairly easily thank goodness.

But it was in the basement of Sears.

Again with my department store anxiety disorder.

How that hell do we get out???

We went up another escalator - yay - and I found our exit!  There was a bunch of half dressed women in underwear...just like we saw when we came in.

And just as a family of about 10 passed us...well that's when the inappropriateness began as I tried to wrestle them in their winter jackets.

"Sexy ladies."  Says my four year old.

!!!!!!!!

As I'm handing him his jacket and whisper-yelling for him to be quiet and put on his (damn) jacket...

there goes my 3 year old trying to pull down the mannequins UNDERWEAR.

Oh you think that's all?

He kissed the mannequin's ass.

Not once.

Not twice.

I frantically look around for my other child only to find him caressing the booty of another mannequin.

I wanted to die.  But apparently one cannot die of embarrassment.

Then I wanted to hide.  Desperately.  But the only place to hide was between a whole bunch of colourful negligees.  And well.  That would be a whole lotta weird.

I whisper-shouted to Finley to move away from the mannequin and somehow ushered them out the door to the blessed cool outdoors.

Only to realize.

It was the wrong exit.