We've been considering "incentive charts" for Bean (which, despite the awesome trip today, I'll likely mock up myself), but that led us to see what local "education" stores might carry. We'd heard good things about Lakeshore Learning Center, which opened at Polaris about a month ago (yes, I'm marking out to them ... www.lakeshorelearning.com). So, we headed up there and ended up having a blast.
Right off the bat, upon entering the store, they brilliantly placed bins of different kinds of balls, so that instantly led to several minutes of Amara grabbing balls and me chasing them around. We then found the sticker aisle, which was one of the goals of the trip, given Amara's obsession with them. Surprisingly, it took only a couple packets of sea animal and dinosaur stickers to allow us to move on through the store. Then, onto the highlight of the trip ... they had a little kitchen/dinette set up, with accessories. Amara quickly immersed herself into it, much to my delight because we have a sink/fridge/oven playset sitting in the basement waiting for Christmas (you can't read this yet, right, Bean?) - so, I was thrilled to see that it looks pretty promising that will be a hit. But, most importantly "in the moment", she was hilarious. She was beside herself when she found toy ice cream cones and then figured out she could fully role-play. I had allowed her to bring in a teddy bear from the car, and he became her guest. She sat him at the table and served him milk and teacups, and "here you go, mr. teddy bear" led to a serving of plastic pizza. And, of course, after eating, he needed washed up, so she carried him to the toy sink and pretended to rinse his hands ... and then his whole body (I'm assuming that's what putting his entire body in the sink would accomplish). All in all, probably not much different than what plenty of other kids do in that situation, but I hadn't seen in her that role before, and it was amazing. hilarious and heartwarming.
The adventure included visits to all parts of the store, amusement for the girls working, and culminated with Amara "convincing" me to pick up a couple things, most notably a version of the kitchen's ice cream set that we could take home. I shed a few calories chasing her around, but we had a wonderful time, and I highly recommend that store. I'm positive that we'll all be visiting it again, for Amara's sake and so I can show Micki all the things I wanted to buy but didn't ... which may require yet an additional trip by just Mom & Dad.
.JPG)
