Mall Walking

Last year Marcy and I did a lot of walking in the mall. I haven’t gone to the mall very often in the last eight years because I stopped shopping there after a very scaring experience eight years ago.

My husband was working (including the commute) 12 hour days and I came up with an absolutely brilliant plan that would save him time so he could spend more time with us. The car needed new brakes. I thought I could take the kids to the mall, drop the car off at Sears and then take the kids to lunch and play in the play space.

The first inkling I had that my plan was actually a really, really bad idea was when I tried to take the children into an actual store! I had Bri and Jake in a stroller and Will in a backpack but Jake wanted to touch everything and he wasn’t necessarily gentle with things. As I was already a ridiculous sight we quickly left the store. Then Jake saw an escalator. He really, really liked escalators and wanted to play on it. When I said no he started to scream and lean out of the stroller. I tried to distract him with a hamburger. It didn’t work. I tried to distract him with the play space. It didn’t work. In fact, I had three separate woman come up to me and ask if they could help me. But they couldn’t. I was trapped at the mall with three children five and under, two of which were autistic. The obvious response would have been to leave but my car wasn’t done yet! So, I walked the mall with a screaming three year old leaning out of the stroller.

I decided that I didn’t ever need to go to the mall again. And I didn’t go often and only by myself until I started going with Marcy. Today we went because I still hadn’t bought a calendar and the one I wanted was at the Calendar store. But I did a lot more shopping than walking today!