We went to JC Penny yesterday to get the boys their free Back-to-School haircuts. We pulled up to the mall, and Ollie let out an impressed exclamation,
“Whoa, that store is HUGE!!”
Scanning my memories, I realized that Ollie (and probably Gabe) couldn’t remember ever going to a mall. The last time we went was three years ago, when we took our Chinese exchange students for a taste of American life.
I have to laugh at myself for not stepping foot in a mall for so long, considering my “deprived childhood”, when I can remember lamenting that the nearest mall was a couple of hours away. Going to the mall always made me feel like a country bumpkin, with the huge window-lit ceilings, the elevators and escalators, and the noisy food courts. I watched my boys’ overstimulated eyes (after their very first professional haircuts) as we walked through yesterday, and laughed at young Katie. I live in a city now, but going to the mall to kill time is simply not a part of our family culture.
Going to Target, eating free samples and snacking on popcorn, however, is a part of the Coleman family culture. And Kmart is not Target. So I suppose I did lead a deprived childhood after all.
On a completely separate note, for those of you who have spent any time with Carina in the last few months, I am sure you can hear in your head the very sound that she was making when this picture was taken. And for that, I apologize.
