No One Warned Me About Elevators!

We found ourselves in Reno, NV over the weekend, and yes that's a picture of the mountains capped with SNOW IN THE MIDDLE OF JUNE!  They're actually calling it June-uary now.

Circus-Circus is the place to be for any self-respecting family.  If you have kids, you just go to Circus-Circus.  Diego was in a dream world at first at the arcade/carnival area.  He loved all the blinking lights, had to reach in the coin slots of all the games, and spent a good amount of time pretending to drive in the race car arcades.  Unfortunately, he quickly got bored of all those things and decided that running around without any inclination to an actual destination was the best thing to do in a place like this.  So he darted...

Mommy followed closely behind, expertly maneuvering around the human obstacles that would suddenly just stand in her way.  This was a test.  Wasn't this a family place?  Shouldn't the people here know better than to block a Momma when she's running after her moving target?  Apparently not!

And then there it was in all it's shining, moving glory... the escalator.  Stairs that move!  Diego decided that he was all about THAT and made a bee line straight for it.  Momma accelerated the gas and caught Diego's hand just in time to give him that extra balance he would need to prevent a nasty fall on moving stairs.

We proceeded to go up and down the escalator for the next 1/2 hr.  It probably would have been easier if he didn't immediately turn around at the top of the escalator and stubbornly believe that "what goes UP, must come DOWN" - this is a hard myth to bust in the eyes of a toddler.  So I would have to pull my tantrum-ready son away from the top of the "UP" escalator as the people behind us were still trying to get off, and direct him toward the "DOWN" escalator - all as my son's body went limp like spaghetti and his piercing screams radiated through the air in his attempts to go DOWN on the UP escalator.

At some point the vicious cycle finally ended as Diego finally grew bored of the escalator.  His last ride was the DOWN escalator and we were back at the carnival area.  There I spied a Dad that had his son on a monkey leash.  I knew I had failed at "Best Mommy of the Year" by forgetting Diego's lion leash.  Oh well, there's always next year's spot. I watched the dad for a few seconds.  His son darted off and crossed in front of three guys that were walking towards them.  Dad yelled, "Be careful now!" and yanked on the leash.  The little boy's body jolted and fell butt-first onto the floor.  The three guys started laughing at what they had just witnessed; a little boy being yanked on a leash like a dog.  The dad looked at me and saw my face, I think he read me wrong.  He seemed to feel guilty as he took the monkey tail and put it away permanently.

If he could've read my mind, he would have seen that I was analyzing what I would've done in that situation, and I was coming to terms with the fact that I would've done the exact same thing with Diego.  The leash is not a win-win situation apparently.  That would've been ME treating my son like a dog too!  I felt bad for the Dad.

But that doesn't mean I'm not going to use the leash.  I found another reason to use the leash later that night.  My husband stubbornly made us ride on the "Parking Garage" elevators instead of the Hotel Room elevators at night when we were ready to get to know our room.  Even though I CLEARLY diverted his attention to the BIG sign that read, "Parking Garage Elevators" he still insisted and we hopped onto the elevator.  There was a man in the elevator with us.  On the ride up, we had a very informative (for my husband) conversation with the man about how this elevator was only for the Parking Garage and we should go back down and take the other elevators.  We thanked him kindly as he got off on his floor and we pushed the button to go back down and waited for the elevator doors to close.  A couple of seconds of silence passed, and like a bat out of Hell, Diego darted out of the elevator and down the hall out of sight.  I screamed his name and chased after him before the elevator doors were able to close.  When I looked down the hall I heard him giggling and saw him running after the man who had just exited the elevator.  He was kind enough to block Diego, as I grabbed him, thanked the man, and returned Diego safely to the elevator.  He was still laughing.

Who will be laughing when they're forced to start using a silly lion backpack leash, huh?  Revenge is sweet!