Taking a 4-Year-Old to the Mall - A Walk in the Mall with Grandchildren is Never Just a Walk

Grandparents.com

He calls it the Walka-Walka mall and we don’t correct him because walk is what Adam does at this mall. Small to us, it is huge to a 4-year-old, a sprawling place with store after store. Plus, we like that he says "Walka-Walka." We smile at his innocence. He’ll hear "Walpole mall" soon enough and Walka-Walka, like all the little-kid things he says now, "pinuter," instead of computer, "goed" instead of "went" will be history.

Just like childhood. One day we’ll look up and that will be gone, too.

Which is why on a bitter cold Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago when staying home and nesting by a fire seemed like a perfectly sensible way to spend a frigid day, I dressed us both in layers and took my grandson to the Walka-Walka mall.

The kiddie rides are the reason he loves this place, a small cluster of them. A few cars, a truck, a helicopter. You put in fifty cents — two pennies, Adam used to say until someone set him straight — and a kid gets to spin and shake and bounce for 30 whole seconds.

Clearly children know how to live. 

When Adam asked to go to the mall I assumed it was because of the rides, But then he said, "No Mimi. I want to show you the games."

Ah, the games.

When my kids were small we played a lot of games but the most memorable was one my husband invented it. It was called Hit the Deck, and it was a car game and this is how it went: We’d be driving somewhere, anywhere, and in the distance we — the adults in the front seat — would see a sign for a trading post, or souvenirs, or for candy or ice cream or some other wonderful thing any child would clamor to have.

But before our kids could see, my husband would yell, "Hit the deck" and they would drop to the floor — this was before seat belts and car seats — and stay there until he shouted "All clear!"

This is how we made our way over hill over dale traveling hundreds of miles without stopping.

It isn’t quite Hit the Deck I play with Adam when I take him to the mall. But the intent is the same: to prevent him from seeing the big open store with the bright lights and the loud, enticing arcade games. We simply have never walked past it.

His other grandparents are the ones who introduced him to this Nirvana.

"I goed with Grammy and Grampy," Adam told me. "And I bowled and I got tickets and I got candy! I'll show you, Mimi."

So off we went. We played Skee-Ball and basketball and Adam tried a game where you try to angle a hook to pick up packets of tickets. He snagged fifteen. "You get to trade the tickets for candy," my little Charlie-at-the-chocolate-factory explained.

Only trouble was, at the end of the day, or more accurately in about 20 minutes, our quarters were gone and we had only 36 tickets. And 36 tickets couldn’t get us even the smallest pack of candy.

I found two more quarters and Adam said, "Let’s try this game, Mimi," and what do you know? The machine didn't do anything except spit out tickets! And out they poured, 76 of them, in a long, uninterrupted string — lights flashing and Adam laughing and jumping and clapping.

I thought of his mother at his age, smiling the same smile, jumping, and clapping at Paragon Park, an arcade not much different from this one.

Adam's small hands clutched the booty but there were so many tickets they dragged on the floor. Around him older children had twice as many tickets, ten times as many. But he didn’t see.

He walked to the counter and pointed to a flimsy wooden plane and asked, "Can I get this?" And I said, "You can get more." And the teenage boy who was waiting on us — not so much older than my boy really, but world weary all ready — didn't smile, didn't even make eye contact.

"You can get the plane and a candy necklace and a piece of bubble gum and still have 15 tickets left for next time," I told Adam.

And he shouted, his blue eyes sparkling, "I CAN GET ALL THOSE THINGS?" Then he turned to the teenager and said in a voice full of wonder and gratitude, "Thank you SO much!" And the disengaged boy met Adam's eyes and smiled.

It was quick, a blink, then it was gone. But it was there. A moment at the Walka-Walka mall, two kids smiling, that I will long remember