Jason and Clara: Mallrats

Continuing our series of one-on-one data days with our children, this month (well, technically last month, but I had today off of work so I did it today, and I only missed March by one day) was my turn with Clara.  Although the weather has started to warm up recently, it was cold again today, so we needed to do something indoors.  I didn't want to copy Meghan's day with her, but taking her to an uncrowded mall is perfect at this age, and I didn't have any other great options.  So I took her to Oak Park Mall.  One of the first things we saw was a collection of those mechanical "rides" that move up and down and play music in exchange for 75 of your hard-earned cents.  We did that, but she wasn't that impressed.  We then found a much more fun activity: randomly running around in the open spaces.  She loved this and seemed to feel so free.  We then rode on the carousel.  She wasn't so sure about that, and toward the end she was ready to be done with it, almost identical to the experience I had with Joshua in Omaha.  We found a play area where she liked the slides and also occasionally trying to run away as fast as she could while uncontrollably giggling knowing I was right behind and about to apprehend her.  We finished with a meal in the food court from a place weirdly named ChickeNow.  We split a chicken sandwich, but as you can see, she was more interested in practicing her "I'm totally bored with this, can we do something else?" face that I'm sure will serve her well in her teenage years.  We had a fun time together, and hopefully next time we'll be able to branch out beyond a mall.