The Joys of Parenting

Okay...so here is one for the books!


So, to break out of our regular routine and in the futile hope of possibly finding a pair of shoes that actually fit my feet, Mathieu, Gabriel and I ventured off to the Place Versailles mall today. Since its not in our neighborhood, it takes us about 40 minutes and is a bit of hassle to get there by metro. But we were up for adventure and off we went!!

We made an afternoon of it by visiting the pet store, the toy store and stopping for ice cream. Mathieu was even nice enough to keep Gabriel entertained while I tried on some clothes (always an adventure trying on clothes with children tagging along!!).

But the piece de resistance was the big water fountain that they had in the mall. After a few hours of shopping we were all tuckered out and Gabriel was way beyond his nap time but they wanted to stop yet again to check out the fountain. Gabriel was having fun running around the fountain and Mathieu was crawling along the wide edge of it trying to make him laugh when I heard a big splash (and a scream- both mine and Mathieu's) and then realized that my oldest, almost 5 year old, had fallen into the mall fountain. After scooping my shocked son out of the water and watching as a big puddle formed around him on the mall floor (as well as watching as the old ladies in the food court stopped their lunch to stare), I went through the usual few minutes of internal frantic maternal dialogue which went something like, "Okay, what the !#@* am I going to do with a sopping wet child...! Fortunatley, after that colourful dialogue, I was able to see the humour in this ridiculous situation and just started to laugh (fortunately Mathieu did too). I said, "Mathieu, next time we'll bring your bathing suit to the mall if you want to go swimming".

Anyways, with the nearest kids clothing store being at the other end of the mall and the fact that it was luckily a beautiful warm spring day today, I decided to wring Mathieu out as much as possible, pour the water out of his shoes, strip off his shirt and put his jacket on, and then take a very wet and squishy ride home on the metro. I was careful not to let him sit next to anyone else for fear he would get them all wet...!

Anyway, all and all a memorable day!! My almost 5 year old is sleeping it off right now!

Stephanie