More Travel with Malcolm Tales

We had a great time in Arizona. It was nice to see family, and everything was lovely. Here are a few pictures before I tell you two stories I want to remember.

Our hotel couldn't have been better.

The last full day we were in town, Mal's grandma wanted us to have an early Christmas. We had dinner at our hotel, then went to a Christmas parade, and finished up the night with hot chocolate and presents at their house.

Earlier in the day, Mal and I went to Safeway to get chips and drinks, and some Christmas cookies. I ended up getting a big Christmas cookie decorated as a snowman. Mal said he was ready to eat some, and I explained that it was for dinner that night. He said he wasn't going to wait for dinner, and I disagreed.

We picked out some snowball cotton candy for Mal to enjoy at the present, and he said he liked it but was still insisting he was having some of that cookie in the immediate future. Once again, I told him we were waiting for everyone at dinner.

Once we'd gotten everything and were ready to check out, Mal said, "Mom, you're a dumb, dumb guy." We hadn't been talking, so I asked, "Is it because I won't let you eat the cookie right now?" He said, "Yes." It's probably rude, but I have not laughed that hard in a very long time. I know some parents might get onto their kid for calling them a "dumb, dumb guy" (James said his insults need work because this one sounds quite childish) but it's the only way he has to express how disappointed he is. And it cracked me up.

The other thing:

On Saturday, we messed around most of the day and were returning our car at about 3 o'clock. When Mal realized we weren't keeping the snazzy blue Nissan Sentra we'd used all week, he was super bummed. He said he hated our silver SUV and he didn't want it anymore; he wanted to keep the Sentra. He cried when we returned the car. He cried when we got onto the shuttle bus to the airport terminal (but first, he cried after an employee told us to run across a circular drive to get to the OTHER bus stop because the bus was over there, and it pulled out right as we arrived). And he cried a lot during the TWO HOURS we waited for our plane. (I had gotten there early because I don't know Phoenix weekend traffic enough to plan otherwise.) Mal also kept telling me he didn't want to get on the plane, but wanted to drive back to the hotel.

In his defense, Mal was tired. He fell asleep as we were taking off. He slept about half an hour and woke up in a much better mood. But when we got onto the shuttle for remote parking, he said, "I don't want to go back to our silver car! I want the blue car!" When we arrived at our parking space, he went full-on bawling, declaiming his hatred of the silver SUV and mourning the loss of the Sentra.

I helped him get into the car seat while expressing my empathy for his disappointment. Then we took off for home.

I was impressed, by the by, with The Parking Spot. Our plane landed at 9:00 and we were at our car by 9:23. I had downloaded their app, so while two other cars waited at the manned exit to pay, I just scanned my phone and was on the road. It was great!

We got about 1/3 of the way home when I heard Mal singing under his breath, "I love you. silver SUV. I missed you so much and I'll never leave you. I love you so much!" Love the one you're with, I suppose... :D