The Mall

I took the kids to the mall today. Wow. So freaky. It has been a few years since I've been to a real, indoor mall (as opposed to a strip mall or Target), and I certainly have never taken the kids to one. It was a bizarre experience. I was having all these flashbacks about being a teenager and hanging out, buying records and drinking Orange Juliuses while trying to look and act cooler and prettier than I felt. I watched Clara watch the girls as they bounced around and giggled in their tiny jeans and flip flops. I could read her mind. She couldn't wait to be them. I give her a lot of grief for trying to grow up too quickly, but I remember feeling exactly the same way when I was her age (well, maybe a bit older...but not much). Speaking of age, I am officially too old to shop in a good percentage of the stores in the mall. Forever 21? I don't think so....

We were there in the first place because both Clara and Trevor managed to wear out and/or outgrow every single solitary pair of their pants during the month of March. We had a Sears gift certificate, so it seemed like it would be a snap to pick up some 'free' pants. Turns out that it is impossible for a seasoned Target shopper to fork out 25 bucks for a pair of kid pants, even if a gift certificate is paying. I just couldn't do it. Chad is happy; he wants to use the gift certificate to buy hedge trimmers. I'm fine with that. Hedges need to be trimmed, after all.

As we strolled around the mall, I noticed that all of the food places we passed were child magnets. Those scoundrels were trying to lure my kids in for cinnamon rolls, ice cream, chocolate, and cookies every 20 steps (which were slow steps in the first place, because Trevi was trying to only step on the blue tiles). Clara was fascinated by the little booths selling jewelery and cosmetics, as well as the mall directories, which she had to stop at and read to get the lay of the land. It came in handy - when I didn't know which way to go to get back to Macy's, she said, "Follow me, I know exactly where it is."

I tried on jeans at the Gap, we bought vanilla milks at Starbucks (evil, I know), and Clara spent 54¢ on stickers in the Hello Kitty store. Then Trevor began to get cranky when I wouldn't let him keep the "hanger sculpture" he had made while we were browsing at JC Penney. Truthfully, we were all ready to head home, so Clara led the way to the car. We didn't make a big impact on mall commerce today, but oh, how I would love to return, alone, 10 pounds lighter, with a huge wad of cash in my wallet that someone is forcing me, under duresse, to spend entirely on myself.

I have no pictures of the mall excursion to post here (although the blogger in me wants to bring my camera almost everywhere), so here are a few shots of other stuff we did today:
Trevor helped make my coffee. He likes to scoop the "coffee powder", but doesn't like the smell once the brewing begins.
Clara played around with the voice feature on my ooooooooolllldddddd laptop. I bought this when I was living in Ecuador (14 years ago?), and it was the love of my life. It doesn't do much anymore, (seeing as it was dropped, and everything on the hard drive was obliterated) but you can type messages into simple text, and then listen to crazy voices read what you have written. Endless fun for Clara.
Trevi watered the flowers that he, Clara, and Chad planted yesterday while I was at work. I try to keep my black thumb of death away from the plants. Chad is in charge of all greens except for edible ones....and he deals with those a fair amount of the time, too.
Clara and Chad went on a long bike ride - her longest ever. We have commenced Operation Build-her-confidence -so-that-we-can-remove-those-training-wheels-by-summer. I don't think they let you into 2nd Grade if you still have training wheels. :)