Buttercup's Day Out (at the mall)

Buttercup suggests all the time now that I get out her car seat so we can go exciting places. That is, she says something like "Mama? Car seat? Getting car seat, we go? Yassim-y come, car seat?"  I am glad she has formed such a positive impression of her carseat.

First of all we went to the grocery store and got the boring shopping out of the way. Then I asked her what we should do next, go to the bookstore or get some lunch. I was very surprised when she said "go look, books." So we went and looked at books.

When we came out of the bookstore, there was a big display of artificial Christmas trees out front. Buttercup contemplated them very seriously. I found all the decorations a bit jarring, myself. There is something very winter-y about Christmas decorations, even if the locals are too tropical to even realize the arctic references. There was no nod to the local environment to them; all evergreens, holly, and fake snow.

The food court at the mall has a bunch of little restaurants around the edges, and seating in the middle overlooking the golf course.  Which so far sounds like American food courts, except the restaurants are full service.  Which means as soon as you come in ten or twenty different waiters come flocking around waving their menus at you, hoping that you will think that you sit down and order from the menu that is handed to you.  This time I knew I wanted Indian, so I sent the others away and the gave up quite quickly.  On me, that is. I took the Indian food menu, and then was handed several more.  "What do you want for the baby?" they asked me.  "Here, chicken and chips for the little one," said several chicken and chips servers.  "This one has food, very nice for children," I was told, with a menu open to chips.  It took a great deal of energy to send them away. Apparently they thought that a child would starve if I only had an Indian food menu.  I have a strong suspicion that there are many Indian children who do not subsist off chicken and chips.

We ate our paneer tikka masala very happily.  And then we shared a cup of English tea even more happily.  In my cup I poured mostly tea with a little bit of hot milk, and in Buttercup's I poured mostly hot milk with a little bit of tea, and we are all very satisfied.

After lunch we went out to the playground area.  Here Buttercup attempted to play by herself.  This was quite shocking to her, as her previous experience with playgrounds has been to follow around someone bigger, and either do what she is told or be scared of doing what she is told.  But at any rate, the equipment was very hot, and she wasn't that interested.  I was trying to use the mall wifi to catch up on email, since it was out on my side of town.  So we went to a slightly-covered sitting area indoors with giant potted plants, which the bigger kids liked to climb around on, so I could finish my internet things.  Buttercup sat on a sitting-cube next to me and happily colored and did not climb on and off anything at all.  She really is quite different from her older siblings, when she has the opportunity.

Then she went back up on my back, and we got some bread, and drove back to school to get her brother and sister.  She was very happy in her car seat again, and very pleased about going to school.  Hibiscus wouldn't pick up her backpack and follow us, so Buttercup wore her backpack, and was even more pleased with herself.