Why do I take him to the mall?

Nate hadn't been out of the house for a couple days, and I had a few returns to make, so we headed to the mall(s) this evening. We first went to Macy's to return a maternity sweater that had a hole in it, and after getting Nate out of the car and set up in his stroller and walking over every square inch of Macy's, an employee told me they don't even have a maternity department. Grr. I also had returns to make at JCPenney, but of course that's at a different mall! I loaded Nate back up, then unloaded him again at Penney's, took the elevator to the right floor, and found what I was looking for. That's when Nate decided he wanted to walk. So I got the walker out and he took off! He had a great time running, then slowing down to look at the shiny jewelry, then running some more, then telling me "This way!" over and over until I would follow him.

Then he saw the escalator. Apparently, Nate has never noticed escalators before. Probably because we always use elevators with the stroller and all. He stood there just staring at it with this awe-struck smile on his face. We talked about what it was for a little while, and Nate was attracting a small crowd with his cuteness. A woman came down the escalator, and when she got to the bottom, Nate cheered for her: "Yay!!!" I told her, "Good job!" :) After standing there for several minutes, I told Nate it was time to go find a shirt for Daddy and pushed him in the right direction several feet. He then said, "Back up" and started walking backwards in his walker until he got back to the escalator! I would have liked to take him on it, but it was just impossible with the stroller and the walker and our bags. Next time Blake is with us at the mall, I'm sure riding the escalators will occupy a lot of time.

Anyway, then he whined a lot and wanted to leave while I was finishing my shopping. Somehow when I was putting him in the stroller I just laid my purse down in the floor and left it there, and didn't notice until I was checking out. Fortunately, an employee had just found it when I got back to it, and we had to get to the back of the line to check out again. Oh, it was just loads of fun. I don't know why I try to take Nate along when I have actual shopping to do. I need to either leave him with Blake to go shop, or just take Nate to the mall to let him run around and ride escalators.