Who needs Disneyworld?

The MALL is like a wonderland to my girl. When we're playing at home, she asks to go to the mall. When we're running errands and within a half mile of the mall in any direction, she puts on her best cute face and asks, "mall?". If we see a fluffy white puppy, she turns to inform me that puppies are at the mall.

We go there quite often, really. Not to shop. I haven't been an avid mall shopper since I was 17 and could spend 4 straight hours there without boredom. No, Amelia and I go there often to escape the unfriendly Atlanta weather. In the fall, we get 2-3 weeks of perfect play-outdoors temperatures. In the spring, it's the same story. 2-3 weeks of comfort outside our house. Otherwise, we're either too cold, enduring never-ending rain, or we're way, way too hot (99 degrees again today!).

It's no wonder Amelia likes the mall, though. We have a pet store with puppies! And bunnies! And fish! And birds! We have escalators and elevators to ride up and down, up and down. We have yummy snack places where I sometimes treat her with a pretzel or a cookie. We have Build-A-Bear, where she can see all the fabulous bears and the amazing fluff machine. We have a small play area with things to climb on and a tiny purple slide. And we have a choo-choo. Amelia only waves at the choo-choo, because I'm afraid of the relentless future begging if I let her go on it once. But she loves to wave at it. She thinks that's just what you do. (One day she's going to ask me why those other kids are on the train...I know.)

Today she discovered a new mall attraction: the TV security camera in Sears. As we were walking through the store, she stopped suddenly and began waving her arms erratically. Thinking she had some kind of bug or unknown foreign object in her shirt, I quickly asked what was wrong.

"Mommy, mommy!", exclaims Amelia, "It's an Amelia show!"

So, laughing, I joined her in the fun. Dancing and waving and hopping in front of the camera. Watching ourselves on the screen. The "Amelia show" is an odd one... but it probably made someone laugh. If there is a security guy manning a booth of monitors at Sears each day, I bet we made his day a little brighter.

He probably thinks we're nuts.