Scenes from a MOA

Now that the weather has turned bitterly cold and deep snow has limited our options we've been spending a lot of our free mornings at the Mall of America. It's close to us, there is ample parking (if you get there early) and there is mucho space for three year olds to run around. Some random notes:

• We usually park in the Arizona lot, which is denoted with a cactus. Relia desperately wants us to park one floor down on the 'pineapple lot' but the entrance there isn't very stroller friendly. Someday, I tell her, she will be the driver and then she can park on the pineapple lot.
• We use the double stroller and recently we've moved Felix into the front seat. He loves it! He can see stuff and smile at everyone. Good stuff.
• Presented without further comment: Relia refers to Victoria's Secret as 'the boob store'.
  
• On most trips we go and visit the fish. Carrie recently wrote about her trip to Underwater Adventures and she does a pretty good sales job. I'm there with the kids often enough that most of the staff knows us by sight. I asked if we were one of their top ten visitors and was told that we were probably in the top five. My one criticism? They should have at least a token blog on their website. I've heard the history of the arapaima and the alligator snapping turtle and both are interesting.
• Relia's favorite? The Disney store of course. She lights up when she sees all of the characters she knows and loves. She could spend hours and hours there so each time before we go in I tell her that we have to leave when I say it's time. So far it's worked.
• In some ways I think that the whole exercise of going to a commercial area and repeatedly not buying things has been a good lesson for her. At least I hope so. She does take 'no' pretty well. So far.
• They (finally) got the Lego store up and running. It had been closed over the fall, if memory serves back in September. It wasn't open again until a week after Thanksgiving. This is commercial incompetence of a high order. I hope that some heads rolled. It should have been open throughout November.
  
• My guilty pleasure? I've discovered that I can skip pennies in the largest fountain. Even better than smooth rocks. It's tricky to get the angle right but the second skip is so long that it has to be seen to be believed.
  
• I'm now hoping that the MOA security aren't reading this!
• It will be nice for us in a few weeks when the crowds thin out.
• That's all!