On this particular day, Meghan and I needed to go find and purchase tile for our basement. My parents were coming up the next day, and dad and I planned to lay some tile. I had previously scoped out Menards but really needed some input from Meghan which meant taking Sydney with us.
After her morning nap, we decided to take the unusual move of going to a restaurant for lunch. We chose Steak and Shake because it's convenient and relatively fast. In the car on the way there, we thought we were really in for it. Sydney cried most of the way until I reached over the seat and held her hand. ...actually I guess you could say she held my fingers in her little hand. Lunch was going to be interesting.
To our surprise, once we got there, Sydney was very receptive. She wanted to get in her high chair and actually sat there. This was also the first time we have EVER ordered her anything rather than just feeding her off of one of our plates. We got her a grilled cheese sandwich with applesauce and milk. Amusingly, kids ate free that day. Sydney ate the applesauce while we waiting on our other food and then acted very odd with her sandwich. She didn't want the little pieces Meghan broke off but instead wanted to bite off the big sandwich. This started with Meghan holding it and Sydney taking bites and ended with Sydney holding the sandwich herself. This started a new trend in our house. Apparently we no longer have to break off bites for her. Normally we just hand her a quarter of a sandwich and let her go to town. Odder yet, Sydney didn't want to leave Steak and Shake and cried when Meghan tried to make her. She finished her applesauce first and I think a few fries. I gave her some of my milkshake.
From Steak and Shake we went to Menards. Sydney cried the whole way there in the car but stopped as soon as we got out of the car. She was a total angel once we got in the store. She rode around in the cart just fine. ...actually she seemed to prefer riding in the merchandise portion of the cart more than the baby seat. ...we let her do it while looking at the warning on the baby seat that said not to do that. I think we were both wondering how long it would take someone to come up to us and admonish us for endangering our baby but no one did. ...and Sydney rode along happily pointing at things.
Having picked out the tile we liked best at Menards, we drove down the street to Century Tile. Sydney cried some. At Century Tile, we let Sydney walk around because she was squirming, heavy, and because there were no carts. What happened next was downright shocking. Sydney was suddenly a full blown toddler. She walked all over the place, hit behind displays, walked up to strangers, and laughed the whole time. You would have thought the tile store was Disney World. She was having so much fun in fact that Meghan had to watch her while I looked for additional tile we might be interested in and checked prices on things similar to what we found at Menards. Eventually we left much to the disappointment of Sydney.
From there we were going to go home however Sydney was clearly in a playful mood. Instead, we decided to go to the mall and let Sydney burn off some energy with some other kids. She cried on the way there but quickly perked up when we got out of the car. In the kid corral she was shy for all of 2 minutes before running off and playing. She wasn't real interested in the other kids this time, and they weren't real interested in her, but she still seemed to have a good time running around. With Sydney occupied, Meghan escaped to the ladies room, and I sat and watched as Sydney ran around oblivious to the fact that I was even there.
A lady standing near me asked how old she was and after a minute of watching her said "did you say 13 months?!". I'm pretty sure she was shocked at how freely Sydney was running around playing among what were mostly bigger kids. Then with that Sydney ran past me and out of the play area into the mall. Apparently she saw Meghan coming back. I didn't see her until I had almost caught Sydney. After that, there was more playing.
At one point, Sydney was running and wiped out. A bigger kid came over and picked her up before Meghan got to her. He then talked to Meghan briefly. I really wasn't sure what to make of that. You wouldn't expect a 5? year old to help a 1 year old up, but he did have a little brother so maybe that was normal. I have no idea what Sydney thought of that.
After that we headed home, and I couldn't tell you what happened the rest of the day. At some point I bought 460lbs of tile from Menards, brought it home with my car's suspension sagging, and carried it all in. As I recall, Sydney was very good all evening.
