she shopped ... we dropped.

Santa was at the mall yesterday! Jacqui wasn't dressed in her Yule-tide finery, but there was no line and she was in a relatively good mood, so she and her grandma and I went to say hello to the Man in Red. (I haven't had personal experience with Santa-in-the-Mall since I was 5; my most recent impression was formed by Bad Santa. So I have to admit relief that he was not only an actual old man with an actual white beard growing out of his face, but he also had no apparent stench of alcohol.) They snapped the photo just as Jacqui was saying, "I'm not here to interact with you, old man -- I'm just an observer." If we have a chance for another, we'll take it ... but this way if we never make it back into a mall, or if the lines are too long, or if she's just in a rare bad mood, we've already got this year's photographic evidence.

Annapolis Mall has wonderful "family restrooms" set up, with two baby-changing areas, nursing spaces (they look like dressing rooms, but have a padded chair & table), and a large WC with toilets and sinks for both grown-up and small people. It's fairly impressive. The only disappointment is that the Powers That Be apparently believe those two changing areas are sufficient; there are no baby changing tables in the women's room, even though it's large enough to accommodate them.

Do they not realize we're in the middle of a baby boom? Walking through that mall, it seems like everyone over the age of 20 is either pushing a stroller or carrying a belly! And the number of tandem strollers (mostly double-long, rather than double-wide, for navigating crowded mall lanes) just keeps growing!

And now we get to the Big Thing. While the three of us were at Sbarro, Jacqui drank from a water bottle! To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how she ended up with my mom's water bottle, but Jacqui was getting very frustrated that she couldn't chew through the cap. My mom removed the cap, held the bottle up, and squeezed from the bottom a little to make the water-level rise to the top. Jacqui put her entire mouth around the opening, made little nursing-motions with her tongue, and drank from the bottle. She probably ended up swallowing 2 ounces, with another ounce on the napkins we shoved under her chin when we realized she was serious.

She amazes me.