Seeing Santa

As everyone knows, only the insane visit Santa at the mall on a weekend. We decided to visit him on a Monday, after my weekly baby check. Great plan, right? Noah would get home from school, the boys would eat lunch, G could sneak in a quick nap before we had to leave for the 1:40 appointment, and then we'd go visit the guy in red.

Except that I screwed up and my doctor appointment was at 1:10. Which meant that G did NOT get a nap. And poor Noah had a nasty cough, so he couldn't go to the well-child room at the clinic like usual. That is where things started falling apart. We planned to leave Griffin in the well-child room, and he seemed perfectly willing to stay there ... until he saw the door close with me on the other side. He started SCREAMING at the top of his lungs, and ran for the door. Noah and I checked in at the clinic desk, then I ran back to the exam area to leave a sample. When I finished, I decided to check on G. I rounded the corner where the receptionists sit, across from the well-child room, and heard them talking about Griffin. Oy. He was still screaming. I had no choice but to rescue him from the well-child room and take him to the appointment.

Fast forward 20 minutes, after the appointment. We loaded back into the van and headed to the mall. Santa was on break, so we shopped for a few last Christmas presents, then got into the line to visit Santa. Noah was prepared. He wants this thing called "The Mega Rig Arctic Adventure Snow Monster Mission" - what a mouthful, eh?




He was thinking ahead and asked me to find it in the toy catalogue so he could SHOW Santa. I did one better ... I printed the image and name off of Amazon.com. So Noah was ready, with his prized toy picture in hand, when it was our turn. But he didn't want to sit on Santa's lap. We had already discussed it. Too bad Santa wasn't in agreement with our discussions. Noah walked up to him and started talking, and Santa grabbed him and pulled him down - poor kid. He didn't want to risk annoying Santa so he just perched there, uncomfortably, as they talked. He showed Santa the picture, and to Santa's credit, he kept the picture "so he'd remember." I'm going to have one happy, happy, happy 6 year old on Christmas morning. :-)

G, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with Santa. He'd sit on the tiny stool somewhat NEAR Santa, but that was it. And he kept trying to make a beeline for the oversized scooter that was a prop for the Santa area. I'd take my eye of him for 2 seconds and I'd hear "RIDE - RIDE - RIDE" and see a little red streak making a break for the scooter. I happened to have a picture of the scooter - my test shot when I was getting my camera ready to shoot.






It was quite an adventure. I should have brought a helper ... I have virtually no photos that turned out. But that is OK. Part of the whole Santa adventure is the chaos, right?