The Villaggio Mall

Phoebe spent the day as an only child, a position she took to quite well. 

She is rather emotional and tends to be rather strongly affected by nostalgia—which is odd because she's only four. How nostalgic can she really be, right?

Remember how just hearing the song 'There's Always Tomorrow' from Rudolph would set her off crying all the time? Like, we could just start singing it and she would start crying? 

It was hilarious, but very indicative of her personality. 

The song just made her so sad that she couldn't even handle it. 

Similarly, she had to laugh boisterously through the entire (loud) call to prayer because it was so loud that once she was startled she was going to either laugh or cry and she settled on laughing and...that was that. Like, those giggle weren't going anywhere until the emotions had fully run their course.

Well, last night we were getting ready to play Nerts together, which Phoebe had uninvited herself from because it's too fast-paced for her. Instead she sat down with a phone and asked it to play some memories for her. She loves the little video montages Apple puts together. So she was just sitting down and watching one of those movies when she started sobbing. 

"Oh, Phoebe! What's wrong?" we asked. 

"Do you...do you miss me?" she blubbered. "Being this little?"

"Oh, of course I miss that sweet little Phoebe! She was so cute and cuddly and funny! But we also love this Phoebe," I said, giving her a hug. 

"But I was sooooo cuuuuuuute!" she wailed. "And I was so little! Just look at me!"

"You were so cute and little! You were my favourite little Phoebe in the whole entire world! And it is so hard to watch you grow up because I always miss little Phoebe. But it is so fun to watch you grow up because you become more incredible every single day!"

We watched a few movies of her being little and cute and fun and we laughed and hugged and blew our noses (or at least her nose)...and...she's not quite over wishing she could reclaim her babyhood, so today (Saturday) was a good day for her to be an "only child" for the day.

Benjamin slept over at G's house last night. 

Miriam left for the library to hang out with her knitting group friends early this morning.

And then Andrew took Zoë and Alexander over to G's house to hang out with G's younger siblings. 

So it was just Phoebe and me and Daddy for most of the day, which was perfect for Phoebe.

We did some window shopping at the mall at some home goods stores, just to see what's available furniture-wise (since we have none), and she quite enjoyed walking around, trying out furniture, and imagining putting a room together. 

Oh, and convincing Andrew and me to carry her. 

I don't know what sweet nothings she was whispering in his ear when it was his turn to carry her, but I had an ongoing rendition of "Oh, how I love my beautiful mommy! She is so nice and sweet! And her cheek is soft and she's wearing black pants! Oh, how I love my beautiful mommy!" going the whole time I was carrying her. It involved lots of nuzzling into my neck and hair. She was very clingy. 

But here she is down for a moment in the rug section (she claimed this area as her fort):

After getting home we piddled around the house (working and boring stuff like that) until it was time to take the metro to meet the kids at the Villaggio Mall for dinner. Miriam went there straight from the library, and G's dad drove all the kids in together (they had dinner with us). 

Here's Phoebe, who sat at the very front of the train the whole way from Msheireb to Al Aziziyah: 

The Villaggio was pretty impressive! It's a Venice-inspired mall, so there's a canal inside with gondolas you can ride in (we didn't—though I just learned it's only 10 QAR per person, which isn't terrible) and a lovely Venetian walkway (very much like the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas).

Here's Miriam, Andrew, and Phoebe on bridge with a gondola passing underneath (we found Miriam at the entrance to the mall—she was waiting for us):

The architecture does have a bit of an Arabian flair to it (which...is fair):

Me and Phoebe on a bridge)

The canal ends at the food court/ice rink:

Miriam actually spent last Saturday here with her knitting/library friends (so I suppose now they are her knitting/library/skating friends). They skated for three hours (they could have done four but got too tired to continue) and had an absolute blast!

It was fun to take in the environment while visiting with our friends and having some dinner. With the vents in the sky/ceiling, we joked that it felt a bit like The Truman Show (which a few of our children need to watch). 

On our way out of the mall we ran into the Hala Summer mascots—in the flesh! They were out greeting children and Phoebe was...thrilled beyond pieces. She immediately ran over to the blue one and gave it a big hug:

Then she turned her attention to the pink one:

She and these two adorable little girls had such a good time...mobbing...this poor creature, who took it all in stride (their smile never faded):

We had a hard time calling her away...

Mostly because every time we got her to come back to us she'd soon break away and run back to the mascot:

It was the time of her life...until Benjamin told her that they weren't real and there was actually a person inside. That really shattered the illusion for her; she was actually quite disturbed by the idea. I gave Benjamin a look that I thought said, "Why'd you go an ruin the moment for her? Let her have her fantasies for a moment! She's only a baby!" and then explained to her that rather than a human inhabiting the body of her beloved 'hala bialsayf' guys (which is, indeed, disturbing), she should think of it like a costume that someone was wearing. That's all.

Even then, it made her feel wary. When we passed by this little inflatable (truly, it's not large compared to some—there's the huge blue guy by our hotel and Benjamin informed me that on their drive to the mall they saw an even bigger one that was somewhere else in the city) Phoebe had to take a minute to decide whether or not she thought there was a person inside of this one, too, that was suddenly going to reach out and grab her (and then whether or not she believed us that there wasn't a person inside the inflatable):

So the magic was dulled and/or tarnished for her a bit, but I suppose that is just one of the hard truths about growing up. Benjamin is in a skeptical phase of life, himself, a place many teenagers find themselves, but eventually he'll learn the joy and importance of creating and maintaining "magic" for others. 

We will have these Hala Summer characters out through September, I believe. And then hopefully the weather will be lovely and we won't need extra summer cheer to get us through the days.

Here's everyone on a bridge of the walkway just before we left the mall:

And here's a view of the Torch Tower behind the mall:

It was a lovely metro ride home! We got on the train with a big group of friends, who quickly claimed the window seat we were aiming for. But after about a stop and a half, one of the girls came up to me and Phoebe (who was on my lap) and said, "Were you hoping for the window seat? We will move. You can have it."

"Oh, no! That's okay," I said. "We're okay here." 

"No, no! I insist! We live here so we ride the metro a lot and we would rather have her look out the window than us."

This group of older teenagers (young adults? Guys—it's getting difficult for me to "age" youths these days. They looked like teenagers, they were talking about medical school...so I dunno) moved to let me, Phoebe, Zoë, and Alex take the window seat on the way home. 

And I think that's such a beautiful example of the ways older members of society can help create an illusion of magic for younger members of society. Those youths (?) still found plenty of enjoyment on their train ride—they were talking and laughing—but they increased the joy for my little kids and that was such a kindness. 

Should my little kids expect this treatment all the time? No–and there have been many metro rides where they haven't been "given" the window seat, and we learn and grow from that, too. But I hope that they will remember these kindnesses and recreate them for others down the road (or train tracks or whatever).