Adventures at the Mall

My little tiger.

My five year old son Bex likes to go to the mall, just like his Mom. In fact, malls, not any particular mall, just malls in general, rank high on my list of places I’ve had joyous fun, exhilarating highs (usually shopping) and painful, degrading humiliations in life.

(Like trying on jeans and being arrested by mall cops. You regular readers will get that last reference. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m just kidding, ha ha! That never happened).

Aaaanyway, I took my kidlet to the mall this weekend and let him play in the banana fruit pit of death, which is a kid’s area where they play tag and smash each other in the head with hard plastic toys.

One taller boy wearing a Mario Brothers t-shirt pinned my kid down on the banana yellow mat and just to make it more festive, starting hitting him in the neck with a red toy- a gun, probably.

This kid’s blithe mother, it turns out, was in the food court and didn’t notice that witnesses were watching her demon child holding my son’s neck, so I stood up and yelled at them “PLAY NICE!” all the while hoping my boy would flip up like a ninja and knock this junior murderer on his heinie.

ROAR!

Bex never complained, but the boy let him up after I went batsh*t. You know as a parent, whenever you sort of chastise or call out another kid who’s not your own you always wait a moment for a potential A-hole parent to scream at you for doing so, but luckily that didn’t happen.

I’m sure the boy was a nice kid who just went too far, but I’m not going to be his accomplice in letting my sweetie become an accident victim because Bex is too vulnerable and friendly to say “You’re cutting off my air supply, douche.”

So. I’m just going to transcribe things Bexon said on the rest of this trip to the mall:

1.) When I buckled him into his car seat, he announced out of the blue “SUBWAY! EAT FRESH!” I’ve never taken him to Subway.

Way to go, advertisers, you’ve turned my son into a sandwich artist’s Manchurian Candidate Zombie.

2.) On the escalator as we stood behind an Asian hipster couple:

Bexon (loudly): “This guy has PINK HAIR! He has pink hair, I think, this guy, it’s pink. And he has headphones on. Right, Mom?”

3.) “I’m gonna get Old McDonald’s ice cream.” (Bex thinks that McDonald’s is called Old McDonald’s, because he associates it with the children’s song “Old MacDonald had a farm…”)

He actually thinks Old MacDonald from the song owns the restaurants, we’ve never told him this. It’s almost too cute for me to correct him.

4.) In the toy store, to the middle aged man behind the counter:

Bex (holds up an Angry Birds slingshot toy): “How much is this?”

Man: “The prices are on the back.”

Me: “It’s $12.99. That’s more than you have.”

(We have had potty problems and in desperation, I now give him a dollar when he goes number 2 on the potty. He saves up the dollars to buy toys. But last week, he had trouble going, he was err…backed up, hence…)

Bex (stands in front of the counter, facing the man to negotiate for the slingshot): “I ONLY HAVE TWO DOLLARS, OK?”

Man: “Then you’ll have to save up more money.”

Bex: “Yeah. I have a hurt butt. And it’s EMPTY OF POOP! MY BUTT IS EMPTY OF POOP! MY BUTT IS EMPTY, SO I CAN’T GET DOLLARS!”

At this point I’m laughing, so I buy him the overpriced plastic toy, which by the way, breaks the same night. Of course it does. But on the way home, my boy is thrilled.

Bex: “We got the Angry Birds Slingshot! They send it from North Korea, and then they DISAPPEAR IT TO LOS ANGELES, right, Mom?”

I have no idea where he gets this stuff. But I’m Lovin’ It.

E-I-E-I-O-

~ Bexon’s Mommy

P.S. Shout out to Janice Goldy from Happy Faces L.A. for the awesome tiger face paint at the park yesterday. Children’s face painters have the patience of Job.

That’s a biblical reference, I think. I don’t know. The patience of Jesus seemed like going too far. I’m just trying to be nice to face painters who have to deal with loads of unruly munchkins. You’re welcome.