We go to the Mall

Arabella has had some behavior issues lately, and I don't want to say we've turned a corner, but ...

I have noticed that in the past week, now that the afternoon nap has become optional (replaced by the afternoon "quiet time" while mommy takes a nap), Arabella has been napping. Sometimes with me, sometimes in her bed, but often I will wake up after a 2 hour nap, realizing the house is really quiet, and peek in her room, and there she is snoring. Now that she doesn't HAVE to, it has become more attractive.

And last night I was really feeling a craving to go out for dinner, mostly because I feel sure that my going out will be seriously curtailed (from almost nothing to nothing nothing) very soon, so I suggested Chinese food. The only problem with Chinese food in Indy is that the only really decent Chinese restaurant in town in PF Changs (how sad is that) and their take out is inedible. So you have to eat in. And after our last experience taking Arabella out to a restaurant, we were of course apprehensive. So we talked about it the whole way, talked up the downtown aspect (she loves downtown, I don't know why, maybe because it is the only thing not uniformly flat and plain in Indy), talked about our expectations.

And she was a perfect "lady" the whole evening (when I said she was being a very big girl, she would respond "I'm a LADY"). She stayed in her seat except for 2 requested trips to the restroom (also amazing since this is the site of her first experience with an auto-flush toilet. She wouldn't pee anywhere but at home for several months after that). She didn't scream or poke the people sitting around us. Even though we forgot to bring crayons and paper, she amused herself with the contents of her purse -- take out cutlery and napkins. She ate her rice and potsticker, only complaining that the Kung Pao Chicken was too spicy, but eating all the peanuts anyway.

After dinner we went for our usual post-meal turn around the mall. We don't usually buy anything, but its good for us to walk instead of getting in the car right after eating. Since the mall closed its last bookstore (there is a very nice one one block away, but we don't do that unless we really are getting done early or don't mind running the homeless gauntlet), we often don't even step in the stores, but we do get accosted by salesladies at kiosks wanting to sell me $40 hand lotion and hair straighteners (as if). But last night we stepped into Gap Kids. Lai-Nga had sent me a gift card some time back, which I have yet to use, and I wanted to see if there was anything Bella or the Bean might need. If you haven't seen them, the mannequins at Gap Kids are like soft-bodied bendy dolls in twill -- with no heads. Arabella stopped dead the moment she saw them, edged up and poked one in the chest a couple of times, then stepped back into daddy's leg and stared. I had already woven my way through the racks to the far side of the store, and to make her way to me she had to skirt several more kid sized decapitated mannequins, and each time she would watch them steadily, beadily, as she gave them as wide a berth as the store allowed. She poked a few more after she reached me, and as we got to the back of the store she visibly relaxed -- all the mannequins are up front. She didn't say a word about the mannequins (which is unusual in itself for Arabella) but the Man and I laughed a long time, wondering what she must think, and what the marketers at Gap Kids would think if they knew that my fearless child is more scared of their mannequins than all the "spooky" halloween props at Target.