More Blogging the Solo-Parenting Days

So: we've made it to the end of Day Two Without Daddy at Home, and everyone's still functioning and intact. Yes, I indulged in a couple iced coffees today, and yes, Julia was a little overtired in the afternoon, but overall I think we did pretty well. Plus it was an extra good day because some of my writing got published today (see below).

This morning it was dark and stormy-looking outside, so I didn't dare take Julia to the park to play. Yet, I really wanted to bring her somewhere to run around and burn up some energy, hopefully resulting in a good nap this afternoon. On a whim, I decided we'd drive to the Faribo West Mall in nearby Faribault, MN, about 15 miles away. We'd never been there, and I knew it wasn't going to be any Southdale, but I figured, hey, it's closer than the Cities, and Julia can run down the halls and tire herself out. I didn't need (or want) to buy anything, I just wanted to get us out the house and somewhere we could walk.

Oy vey, people. This was the saddest, most depressing excuse for a mall that I have EVER SEEN, and I've seen a few. I mean, it was so, so pathetic that it was actually ridiculous. It was such a huge waste of time to drive there--maybe 20-25 minutes on the 2-lane highway and then some twists and turns through and around the little town--that it's actually somewhat hard to describe. Picture a trashy, tiny Big Lots as the mall anchor. Picture a mall so small we could walk from one end to the other in five minutes---that's WITH a toddler. Picture a Hallmark trumpeting its Going Out of Business Sale, a Radio Shack, a nail salon, an insurance company, an athetic-apparel store with a tracksuit advertising Corona in the display window, an ancient-looking Maurice's, and one of those super-depressing Chinese buffet restaurants that are always empty and that have fluorescent-bright photographs of the entrees on the wall outside the door. Picture, instead of a food court or even one fast-food restaurant, an open alcove near the center of the mall lined with vending machines, with a neon sign above it boasting, "Snack Center." Oh, so sad.

But. Here's the cute, sweet part. Near the "Snack Center," there was a platformed cluster of those little coin-operated kiddie rides: a miniature police car, an ice cream truck, a spaceship. Julia was intrigued. I didn't need to actually use any money to operate any of these rides; Julia would have been too scared of them if I had. But she wanted to sit in them, and did so for quite a few minutes. To her, this was interesting, fun, and exciting. Oh, and then there was the closed-up Hispanic party-supply store with the Elmo pinata in the window ("Elmo pee-yata! Elmo pee-yata!" she gleefully shrieked to her dad on the phone later in the day when he called to check in from NYC). MORE THAN exciting, this was downright thrilling. The fact that my little Sweet Pea could derive such joy out of the most depressed, and depressing, shopping venue I have ever seen was very sweet, actually. And she didn't even complain when I told her that was enough, it was time to go. She's such a good sport--such a good citizen, as Catherine Newman would say about her firstborn, Ben.

On the way home, at a red light, touched by her well-behaved demeanor as she sat obediently in her carseat listening raptly to Dan Zanes on the car stereo the whole half hour home from our anticlimactic outing, I reached back and patted her leg and said, "You're my best buddy, Sweet Pea," and she looked up at me with the sweetest, most demure little smile, and said happily, "Yeah." She really is, too.

Oh, and by the way--today Julia actually liked most of the songs on the Dan Zanes CD. Instead of saying "Skip dat one!"or "Don't yike dat song EITHER!" to every track, she actually said, "I YIKE dat song!" appreciatively several times, and made me repeat the circus elephant one a few times in a row. I didn't mind, it's truly adorable.

Goodnight, all. There's 1 more solo-parenting day to go, and we've got a bit of a drive tomorrow.