Superlative Evening in the Mall of Wonders

It's a tough call, determining, on a regular basis, when to draw the line between fun and discipline, between splurge and frugality, etc., and I'm especially terrible at it, because I really feel that childhood is so special, it needs to be magical and overflowing with beauty and joy, and I tend to err on the side of indulgence in trying to keep a regular flow of happiness in the children's young lives.

That being said, tonight seemed like a time that a bit of overindulgence really paid off. Amy had class tonight, and I took over the Van of Plenty around 4:00 p.m., and had to figure out where to take them. Their favorite indoor amusement park seemed out of the question, because it's full of climbing structures, and with their coughs/colds/etc., Amy and I didn't want them to be handling all kinds of monkey-bar-type things that other children will then grab hold of; one needs to quarantine them to a point. But they also haven't gotten out in awhile, and we wanted them to be able to run around a bit. So the play area at the mall was the compromise; there are no real "close quarters" there, and very few manipulable gizmos for them to stick their hands on - mostly open carpeted space for them to run around. They weren't coughing this evening, so it seemed like they'd pose a minimal threat to other young'uns. So that's where we went.

So the first thing I had to decide on was how many rides they could go on; there was the "train" - which has an oval track roughly the length of a stretch limousine; there was the carousel, and there were the cheapo-weapo coin-operated rocking cars/animals/spaceships/whatever at the far end of the mall. Somehow, tonight felt like a "best-two-out-of-three night". Their first choice, for whatever reason, was the train track to nowhere, so Ian and Madeleine sat in one "wagon", and Daniel sat in another, and they took their all-important ten laps around the several-yard course, with plenty of waves as they passed (especially from Daniel) and interspersed happiness and anxiety on Madeleine's face.

Then came the play area, as usual, and they got a modicum of running around out of their systems, and we took a break for dinner, which turned out to be white rice and a very large amount of chopped, fried chicken-bits from one of those pseudo-Japanese stir-fry places in the food court. [Ian made it clear that a real stir-fry, with icky vegetables, would not be acceptable...] For some reason, orange juice was the drink of choice this evening, with the three of them guzzling two large orders of it collectively. [Ian later went up to the place where we got the juice, and asked what they had for water. They offered him bottled water of "free water," so he went for the genetically-pre-programmed family choice (my family - not Amy's family; Amy takes water seriously.) We also shared a "maki roll" - which looked suspiciously much more like a spring roll. Daniel quickly re-dubbed a "hockey roll", and was rather curious about the new discovery. At one point during supper, he asked me, "Daddy, is hockey roll real food," and Ian, who obviously had no idea that the "hockey roll" in question was part of our meal, clarified, almost impatiently, "It's a game."

They then went back to the play area, where a collective punching balloon had mystically appeared, and the children and parents (including me) ended up playing a very nice game of keep-the-ball-in-the-air-and-make-the-kids-run-after-it. That was very good for them, of course. Meanwhile, Daniel developed an odd love-hate-love relationship with a boy more-or-less his size, and he told me, very logically, "I did on purpose be mean to him [pointing], but I wasn't trying to." Soon after that, he clarified, "Daddy, after being mean to that boy in the red shirt, I kissed him, saying 'Sorry.'" He later told me that he had hugged him and kissed him, to show his remorse for previous discourtesy. That made me wonder how the antidote felt for the poor boy in the red shirt, vis-a-vis the original malaise. As usual, Daniel also announced, "Hey Daddy, I'm pretending to be Batman."

Meanwhile, Ian was getting very curious as to why now two punching-balloons had materialized in the play area, so he asked another boy, who told him that you could get them from "the carnival." I found it hard to believe there was any such carnival in the mall, but Ian was determined to find it, so we left the play area, and began a search, led by a six year old, to find some unlikely carnival-in-the-mall. Ian very sensibly figured out that if anyone in the mall knew where the carnival would be, it would be the people in the Disney store, so he went in to ask them for directions to the carnival, while Madeleine, Daniel and I stayed outside. [Daniel and Ian spent much of our walking-time in the mall helping to steer Madeleine clear of all the stores she wanted to visit.] Ian was very proud, by the end of the evening, that he had procured those directions.

In any case, the grown-ups behind the counter at the Disney store presumed that "carnival" meant "carousel" - how preposterous - and directed us toward that carousel, which was in plain sight down the corridor. When we got to the "carnival" in question, everybody wanted a ride, so the girl put Daniel on his horse, I held Madeleine on the horse next to his, and Ian spun crazy circles for the entire ride, in one of those mad-spinning-saucer gizmos in front of us. I advised him to spin in alternating directions, to keep from maxing out on vertigo, and I think it's good for all of us that he listened to me. He had eaten a fair bit of rice and chicken, after all...

As we got off the carousel, and I started putting coats on the children, starting with Madeleine, Ian took note of the vaunted punching-balloons, hanging from little plastic white hooks around the entire ticket-booth of the carousel, and came over to tell me he had asked the girl if he could have one.

"What did she say?"

"She said it's up to you."

[Sotto voce] "How much do they cost?"

Ian went galloping back to the girl in the booth, and galloping back, announcing, $1.00 each.

So Ian got a red one, and Daniel got a pink one, which surprised me. I held off with Madeleine; I figured if she wanted one, she would manage to let me know, in spite of her age (20 months) and correspondingly limited vocabulary. Of course, she did let me know, in short order. I let her pick, and she ended up with a yellow balloon.

[When we got home, Ian gave me precise instructions to pass on to Amy about how to handle and set aside Madeleine's balloon, to minimize the chance of it popping.]

On the way out of the mall, Ian expressed surprise to Daniel that he had selected a pink balloon, and the next thing I knew, Ian was telling me that Daniel actually wanted a blue balloon. I argued that they really only had green and turquoise for dark (and presumably "masculine") colors, but they were having none of it; turquoise was blue, and Daniel was going to have the blue balloon. By then, the girl was vacuuming and getting ready to close up and go home, but Ian let her know what the situation was, so with her agreement, I did a quick switch-o-rama of the hanging "blue" balloon and the outmoded pink one, and we headed for the car.

Where is this story going?

For much of the evening, Ian was bubbling with joy and appreciation, and talking about what a very nice time he was having (juxtaposed against tales of grouchy females earlier in the day). But as we were leaving the mall, he said something supremely rare:

"Daddy, that was the most fun time I ever had."

Daniel piped in: "Me, too."

Amy told me that when she asked Ian how the trip to the mall was, he said it was "the best time I've ever had."

Being Scottish (only partially, but sufficiently), I can't help but go back and try to figure out the dollar-amount of the reported best time ever. This is particularly in light of my reluctance, and inner conflict, about when to spend money on their whims and when to hold back.

So here's the math:

Pseudo-Japanese food: $7.38

Orange Juice: $2.17 x 2 = $4.34

Train Ride - family pack option - four tickets for $5, rather than the customary $2 per passenger (plus we have a spare ticket for some potential subsequent adventure) - hence, $5.00

Punching Balloons (3 @ $1.00 per punching balloon): $3.00

In total: $7.38 + $4.34 + $5.00 + $3.00 = $19.72

Hence, the cost for the reported best time ever: $19.72

They're a rather "cheap date", as things go, but I couldn't have imagined how overwhelmingly worthwhile all of these frivolities and indulgences turned out to be, both for them and certainly for me.

(January 25, 2010)