Antics at the MOA

This weekend Keegan, Lyle and I went to the Mall of America (MOA) with my mom, dad, sister, and, her husband, Roberto.

Initially Keegan was strapped into his stroller, but as has lately been the case, that did not last long. The boy wanted to boogie. Lyle, my dad, and sometimes my mom took turns watching him while Kim, Roberto, and I went in and out of stores there.

There were a couple highlights to this trip, regarding Keegan. While Lyle, me, Kim, and Roberto were in Express my dad was standing outside with Keegan. My dad was on his cell phone, when a lady looked at him and said "Looks like someone is trying to escape!" My dad looked down and Keegan had gotten his seat belt off and was shimmying down towards the ground. He had gotten his head down below the tray on the stroller and his toes were almost to the ground when he was found out.

After that my mom took him and let him run around The Limited some. The store wasn't that crowded and Keegan had a ball running around between display tables and shaking his butt to the music there. Of course, everyone in the store thought he was "sooooo, cute".

Outside of a different store Lyle and dad were waiting with Keegan. When my mom saw them she laughed at the manly pose Keegan has assumed. He was leaning on the railings looking down to the 1st level just like Lyle and dad. She thought this was super cute until she realized that Keegan was trying to scrape his shoes off of his feet and drop them down onto the people below. What a stinker!

Keegan also loved the window displays. In front of Victoria's Secret there was a stuffed Pink dog with wings and a halo pinned on it for Valentine's day. Keegan toddled over to it and proceeded to "pet nice" on the doggy's head. It was really cute until Keegan decided that he had had enough of "petting nice" and he pulled the wings off of the stuffed dog. We had to chase Keegan down and Lyle was stuck standing in front of Victoria's Secret pinning stuffed wings back on a stuffed dog while I took Keegan to a safer, less destructive play area.

In general Keegan loved looking over the rails, running between columns, and looking at people and shopping items with equal vigor.

Everything went swimmingly until we got to Famous Dave's to eat dinner. Keegan had enough of everything by then. This is going on probably 5 hours at the mall, so who can blame him. The only thing that would appease the boy is eating corn muffins. So everyone donated corn muffins to the "keeping Keegan happy" fund. Keegan liked to rip the tops off of the muffins and then stuff them in his mouth.

Even that wasn't enough to keep him placated toward the end. So I took him out of the restaurant and we examined the giant bear (which he also nicely patted on the nose) and then we started doing heroic jumps up onto and off of the columns outside of the restaurant. This got the little man giggling pretty hard. A lady in the restaurant and her mother were watching us closely. The mom finally said "my daughter will have one of those any day now!" Ends up the woman's daughter was 39.5 weeks pregnant. I sympathized with the daughter and told her that she was doing the toughest part right now and that it does get better (although given the activities I was partaking in, she may not have believed me)!

Probably the most amazing thing is how many people want to stop and talk to Keegan and talk to us about Keegan. It's great how many nice people you meet. Of course Keegan is very inviting; he always walks around with a huge grin on his face, he waves at people who wave at him, and gives high-fives aplenty. I hope that he can keep his positive attitude of the world for a long time to come!