First Family Trip to the Shopping Mall

It was finally time, we headed to Mayfair Mall with the boys. Matthew was just fed and Sam woke up from his 2 hour nap. The diaper bag was all ready and we had both strollers in the van. We made it to the mall with no whinning or crying. We parked at the Fields lower entrance. We were able to get a few things that we needed very quickly. Soon it was 5pm and Sam was getting hungry, luckily we were at a mall that had a pizza place in the food court. Near the end of dinner Matthew wanted his milk. So I fed him as Erin ran with Sam around the food court talking to anyone that would listen. Eventually Sam came back with a bag of cookies that he begged Erin to get. During this time, there were announcements indicating the mall is closing and Fields will be open till 9 which was fine as we parked on that side of the mall. So we thought we were just fine...Until Erin noticed one gate closing the walkway from the food court to the mall. So I grabbed the stroller for Matthew as I was still feeding him in my arms, and Erin got Sam's as she followed behind him. Again, as he talked with everyone in sight. We got thru the first gate, but when we made it to Fields the gate to the store was closing and that is when thought we would lose Sam. He almost made it under the gate as it was closing, and the employee just looked at us and said the first floor entrance is open that we should use that. So Erin and I then had to head downstairs, which our only option was to take the escalator, with 2 kids, and 2 empty strollers. The employee offered to help me with the larger one as we went down and behind me was Erin barely holding on to Sam as she was also holding the other stroller. Once we made it safely downstairs, the Mayfair Cop approached me and said 'in the future I should not use the escalator.' I looked at him and said 'that was not an option at 6pm when the all the gates were in place and Fields closed the top entrance where we were.' Meanwhile Matthew is still drinking his bottle. The cop then said to Erin that he wished he had Sam's energy as he was trying to be nice to her. When we finally made it back to the van we were so relieved that it was over.