The Eyes of a Child

 

 

While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about.
~Angela Schwindt

Yesterday was a good day.  Initially, in the morning while doing chores, I didn't know if I would have the energy to do this when I got home, but a special little boy in my life was begging the second I walked in the door and well, my arm was twisted and my decision was made.  Little Luke was finally going to have the fun experience of going to Build A Bear Workshop to create his very own special friend.

See about three months previous I had casually mentioned the idea to him and how there was this cool place where you could pick out your own animal, stuff it, name it and get clothes for it and all this stuff at "the mall", needless to say, he hasn't let the topic go away since and I can only make up excuses for so long as to why we couldn't go.

So we went.  I had special talks with both of his older siblings that although they were going along, this was Luke's special day and neither of them were going to talk me into getting new bears themselves (and yes for those of you wondering, they would've).  Nor were they getting anything at the mall at any other store unless they paid for it with their very own money.  Although they weren't thrilled at the idea, they got it and away we went.

There is nothing better to me than taking a young child somewhere he's never been before.  I honestly never go to malls shopping and when I do it's either for school shopping when Luke isn't along or Christmas shopping when he isn't along either so this experience was very new to him.

The first thing he saw when we walked into the mall were the escalators.  He was very excited!!!  I think if he had the chance he would've rode up and down them all day.  He kept calling them "the steps".

 

So, once up "the steps" we headed over to Build A Bear.

 

 

At this point Luke has absolutely no idea what to expect, we aren't frequent flyers in these kinds of places.

 

We head into the store and show him the roughly 20-25 animals to choose from.  Bears of course, dogs, kitties, bunnies, monkies, there was even a penguin.  He looks with all seriousness and then stops and says, "Oh nevermind...we can go.  Let's go to the monster truck store."

 

Can you believe it?

 

Of all those animals, each of them really cute, he didn't want any?  Most people would find that a good thing, that their kid didn't want something from Build A Bear, but I didn't drive roughly 40-45 minutes away to this special store to drive to the nearest Walmart instead and buy a monster truck.

 

I then explained to him that if he picked out the cutest one, he would get to help put the stuffing in and name it and wash it and blow dry it and that the animals would be really sad if nobody took them home to love them.  After that he was convinced.

 

So he picked this adorable little puppy.

 

 

 

He still didn't completely understand the process yet and while waiting in line kept wanting to go back and grab the already stuffed one like this on display.  I think he was pretty certain that the unstuffed one he had wasn't going to be loveable enough and didn't want to get ripped off.  Thank goodness the line moved at the pace it did or we could've had a major meltdown real soon.

 

Onto the creation of his puppy.

 

 

 

Being asked if he wants his doggy to be soft, medium or hard.  He chose soft.  I would've too.  Who doesn't love a real softy, heh?

 

 

 

 

Luke running the foot pedal to put the stuffing inside his newly found friend.  He was starting to dig this Build A Bear thing now.  Or Build A Dog in our case.

 

 

 

 

Here he just picked out the heart that eventually goes into his new friend.

 

 

 

 

Here he is rubbing the little heart for his friend to warm it up.  Previously he had to kiss it too but I didn't get that on film.

 

 

 

 

And the heart is in and his new friend is complete and being stitched up.  Dontcha love how he picked a very feminine, pink little doggie?  LOVE IT!!!

 

Now, time to bathe, blow dry and comb his new friend.

 

 

 

 

 

Ta da!!!  A new found friend.....who he ended up naming Butterscotch?  Yep, he has a pony from Christmas named Butterscotch too and we have a cow at the farm named Butterscotch and well, he's stuck on that name for now I guess. 

 

 

 

 

By the time we left the store he was allowed to pick out some clothes, so he picked out a little pink, multi-colored onesie jammie with hat and some hot pink slippers for her feet.  Too funny.

 

 

 

 

And the Build A Bear experience was a hit.  And luckily for me it wasn't that expensive by comparison. 

 

 

 

 

We headed to the food court for some grub and had conversation.  Luke only had one complaint about Build A Bear, he was not happy that they didn't have any farm animals to choose from.  His list included cows, pigs, horses and chickens.  Apparently he would've liked to have stuffed one of those instead.

 

And before heading out of this big place "the mall", we had to stop at Luke's favorite thing there...

 

 

 

Seriously, I can't pass these up myself, how could a 4 year old?  We had some Mike N Ikes and a few gumballs before leaving.  I think we even stuffed some pockets with some extras for the long ride home. 

 

It was a step away from reality and the strains of the adult life.  Just the four of us "chilling" and not caring too much about anything for the moment.  Life was good.