Choo choo

Over the weekend, we spent an hour killing time at the mall.  When it's cold and snowing outside, you have to find ways to be creative inside!

As we were walking around, Riley spotted the train and asked politely if he could take a ride.  He made his plea and after telling us that he would sit still and get strapped in, we obliged and purchased one round-trip ticket for the train.

He picked a seat, held on tight and took a ride around, and around, and around!  

He was a great passenger and loved each lap more than the next.  Unfortunately, he loved the train so much that he wanted to ride it again.  The only way to convince him that it was time to move on was to leave the train side of the mall.  So we headed down the hallway, with Riley making friends and showing his belly button to everyone that smiled at him. 

And then he saw it... the escalator!  Riley has been on escalators before, but never when he actually rode it himself.  So this was to be celebrated!

This activity could have gone on for 25 minutes if we let him, but after 5 rounds, we decided to move on.  Had we known what was going to happen next, we probably would have stayed on the escalator ride.  

The Apple store has these pretty glittering lights in the window that Riley stopped and stared at from the outside.  He was mesmerized by them and all the employees were commenting on how cute he was.  Then he came inside and in 2 quick motions, he lunged for the lights and took a quick tug - and the display came apart.  The strand of lights came down, the hanging part fell and part of the display was on the ground.  Lucky for us, it wasn't the kind of display that could really break, but while we were in the store, it was temporarily out for service.  After some profuse apologies and offers to help, we moved along to the Build-A-Bear store, where the displays were much more durable and child-friendly.

This weekend, we are planning to go to one of the museums and explore more winter weather activities!