A Ticket to Ride...the escalator

The man playing the piano in the middle of Nordstroms paused for a brief second to smile at Isaac and me as we stepped upon the escalator to ride up to the second floor this morning.

We returned going down the escalator 45 seconds later and he gave a courtesy nod.

The fifth time we made our ascent on the escalator, the piano player shot us a curious look.

On our tenth trek down the escalator, the piano man narrowed his eyes at us and exchanged a look to a fellow employee working the shoe department.

By the time we had completed our twentieth ride on the escalator, the piano player was obviously over our antics and was completely ignoring the mother and son duo who had chosen to spend a portion of their weekday morning enjoying the escalator of a large department store.

As our preschool school year began a few weeks ago, I slightly lamented the fact that the children would not be attending school on the same days. Because of this unique schedule, there would never be a day or time when both children would be safely tucked away inside the walls of their school, leaving me to frolic child-free around town for a few hours.

It is now week three of school and I am enjoying these moments each week of being a parent of only one child for a few hours. Yesterday Evelyn and I wondered the aisles of Target, sighing over precious hot pink patent leather mary janes and carefully examining the baby doll section of the toy department. We hauled out every girl toy that child owns and hosted a grand tea party that would make even the Queen of England a bit jealous.

Today Isaac and I headed out to the mall, in search of a mall play area. The boy ran, jumped, ran some more and made a few new friends. After discovering a sippy cup that had emptied its contents into the bottom of my purse and attempting to clean said mess out of my purse, we called it a morning and started the retreat to our car. On the way we passed a fish tank and stopped to examine each fish, speculating about their fish personalities. As we were about to leave the mall, Isaac spied the escalator. When I asked if he wanted to go ride it just for fun, his little blue eyes glowed with excitement.

So we rode it.

About 23 times.

Sure, I needed to get home. The breakfast dishes were still piled in the sink, there was a bed unmade, I had an article to write and Isaac and I had a reading lesson to complete before we picked up his sister from school.

But I figured when Isaac is 15, there will likely still be some sort-of breakfast dishes in the sink, there will be an bed left unmade in the house, I will likely still have something to write (I hope), and most likely Isaac will have moved on from learning how to read and will have some sort of complicated homework to finish.

However, when he is 15 he probably will not want to ride the escalator at Nordstrom's 23 times.

So today we rode. And rode some more. And I was so thankful to be that boy's mama.