Mall Walker

Summer heat has hit in earnest. This summer is also turning out to be exceptionally wet. While we are used to daily, early afternoon rainshowers this summer has been full blown storms for days at a time. Not that we are complaining. We need the rain. Still, it makes entertaining two energetic boys a challenge. Luckily, Truitt can stay at school late on days when getting anywhere will be impossible. But on the days we can get out, one of our favorite places to head is Memorial City Mall. You might remember scenes from this playground posted last summer. We used to go a couple times a week. Mathis was only a couple months old so he used to just ride in the sling while Tru and I would get a soft pretzel and then play....

This summer is quite different. Mathis is going constantly. He has only been walking for a couple of months but is already working his way in to running. Scary, to be honest. With the heat and rain, the mall called to us again. This time it was a very different experience for Mathis. He's a pretty clingy kiddo, so I expected to sit and he would play near my feet while Tru roamed freely. I was very wrong. Mathis took a couple minutes to warm up but once he got going, there was no stopping. He was everywhere, including up the stairs, and I barely had time to breathe, never mind sit. I didn't think of bringing a real camera, so I started to snap photos of the insanity with my phone. It was hard to get any of them running around without being a total blur but every once in a while they would duck in to a crevice or cubby or corner and I would snap them (some with the Hipstamatic, of course)...

What's not to love about brotherly love?

And this picture really sums up for me why I never wanted an only child. The boys are real playmates now and it's only going to get better as Mathis understands more and can start to communicate.

We also ran in to some friends. Truitt's classmate Audrey was at the mall with big sister, Olivia, and their father, Charles. They live in our neighborhood and Charles has a popular political/current events blog in Houston which I read: Off The Kuff. The kids were super excited to see eachother and we extended our playtime quite a while so they could run around. With a friend his own age, Truitt sort of left Mathis in the dust but Mathis is still too small to notice. He had plenty of fun exploring with Mama on his tail. We had lunch with Audrey and her family and it was a nice way to spend a too hot, too wet Sunday morning with Daddy out of town.