Brian Bender here is a old rant of mine I forgot to post :)
In 1997 the Great Mall of the Great Plains opened. This mall was supposed to be the biggest outlet mall in the state of Kansas. It featured both outlet and traditional mall stores laid out in a half of a mile circle. This mall did not succeed to say the least. It is sad, half of the store spaces are empty. However, this indoor circular mall has become a winter wonderland for toddlers and mall walkers.
The winter has come and has trapped Autumn and I inside our home. 14 degrees sucks. I have tried shopping like mentioned earlier, but my child needs to run. She needs to play. Her behavior out shopping is a direct result of needed stimulation. Autumn and I are the same, we don't like being cooped up all day and get bored easy. I bake out of boredom and I need to relax on this because I am starting to gain my winter coat of fat.
Therefore I decided to take her to The Great Mall of the Great Plains. I have been told before that this a great place to let your toddler run off some energy in the winter. That was some good advice. And the people that own this mall know it. There are little quarter rides placed everywhere, games, and play areas for little children. We went to a play area that only one other little girl was playing in at first but by the time I left there were 8 children there.
So now that Autumn is older I find her starting to interact with kids that are a bit more vocal than I am used to. Autumn was playing on this bridge and a little boy was trying to climb on the outside of the bridge. Autumn went to put his hands down and I immediately stopped her and said "we share the playground and we don't put our hands on others". She stopped and looked at me pouting her lips and then the boy reached over and pushed her saying "yeah don't touch others". My immediate reaction was to snap at him and I did "that goes for you too!". Well we go on to a slide that Autumn needed help climbing up. The little boy follows us and of course he needs help climbing up too and is asking me. So where is this kids mother? Oh just playing on her cell phone.
We all do things that other parents don't agree with. Mine is I let my kid eat in the car. I am sure people would tell me my kid is going to choke and that food can always wait. But I can not stand the parent on the phone. Especially when their child is following me around asking me for help. I don't like telling others kids not to push and I definitely would never pick up a strangers kid unless they were in danger or something. Needless to say after awhile we ended up just moving on to the next play area.
Autumn had a blast running around and I was so happy I got to get us out of the house for a bit!
