chocolate coated candies....

Last week I needed to run to the mall and thought I would kill 2 birds with one stone and let Riley run wild to burn off some energy (hoping it would encourage an actual nap) So here we go to the mall at 10:30am, we didn't even make out of town and Riley was saying "chicken? chicken?"  So we stopped at Mc Donald's -because he will probably need his energy- we ate at Mc Donald's at 10:45 am.  Now to the mall...our mall adventure started well, the expectant mother's parking spot was wide open, so we didn't have to walk far.  We go right to the play area in Jordan Creek and Riley loves it there...until about 30 minutes into play, I see across the way, Riley "lovingly" hugging a little girl to the ground and sitting on her...I quickly get up from my place of sitting and pile drive through crowds of small children and babies to tell Riley "No" ...By the time I got back across to sit down again, I turn around to see Riley trying to "lovingly" hug another small child at the top of the slide and they proceed to roll down the slide.  While, I really don't think it's a big deal-none of the kids seemed to mind and I have seen other kids to WAY worse-I felt like I was starting to get bad looks from some moms...soooo we left.
I didn't bring a stroller-to get that energy burned-and Riley did so well with holding my hand and keeping up.  We took the stairs twice and got all my stops done...first stop was Creative Kids Place to get Riley a new truck- since his was in a horrible accident- and to look for a birthday gift for Caleigh.  I found Riley's truck and I started to look for Caleigh's gift, as I was reading the back of something, I turned to check on Riley and he had taken every.single.truck car and van in the store and lined them up from one end on the store to the other end.  I'm talking a 40 foot wide store...customers were stepping over this caravan of vehicles to get to the back of the store.  Luckily the sales clerk didn't care, needless to say it was time to check out.  Slowly but surely Riley was losing energy and we started to have a melt down in Scheels, so I got him a bag of M&M's and put it in his front pocket of his sweatshirt so he could just reach in and take as he pleased...I needed to stop at one more place and it was clear across the mall but the M&M's -despite the obvious exhaustion- seemed to be working.  We finally got to the kiosk-those specialty shops in the middle of the mall- that I wanted to look at and I told Riley to sit on the bench close by-and by close I mean 2 feet away and in clear sight-he sat very well, but I was being very indecisive and I noticed the child melting to the floor of the mall and then he proceeded lay down on the floor of the mall and as he did this ALL of his M&M's fell out of his pocket. So as the M&M's scattered around my child laying on the mall floor,  I hurried to make a decision and as I was checking out, I turned to notice Riley laying on his belly, cheek to floor and eating the chocolate coated candies right off the mall floor... (and I thought I was getting dirty looks in the play area).  But by this time I was exhausted, dripping sweat and could care less...so go ahead and judge me pottery barn shoppers with your chicco strollers...if  letting your toddler run free at the mall and eat candy off the mall floor disgusts you,  then we will just start shopping at Southridge!