P365 - Day 205 - the scrapbooking shop is closed

Earlier this week I wrote about how Juniordwarf loves to describe the route to wherever we’re going in great detail. He does it in the car and he does it when we walk Sleepydog.

Yesterday when we were out walking with Sleepydog, Juniordwarf asked if we could walk to one of the streets we usually drive to. I said we could, but that it would be easier if we went without Sleepydog, since she’s not the easiest dog to walk.

He agreed with that, and this morning said he wanted to walk to that street, which is close to the centre of town, more than two kilometres from our house. I agreed and decided that since we were going that way we might as well do a couple of errands at the same time, to save someone driving.

So we set off, after me telling Slabs he might need to be on alert to come and pick us up if it got a bit much for Juniordwarf. Juniordwarf was very excited, setting out our route before we went, and telling me how we would also walk past the scrapbooking shop so he could see the sign in the window.

He has quite a thing for the ‘open’ and ‘closed’ signs displayed in various shop doors, and every time we drive past any of the shops that he’s become interested in (there are several regulars), he checks to see whether the shop is open or closed, whether the lights are on or off and whether the blinds are up or down.

The scrapbooking shop in our town is his main focus, but he’s also amused by the op shop next door (or in Juniordwarfspeak 'the dressing shop'), which has another sign in its door that partly obscures the ‘open/closed’ sign, giving the impression that the shop is either ‘pen’ or ‘losed’. This provides him with hours of entertainment.

When we got to the scrapbooking shop, he spent an amazing amount of time looking through the window ‘at the stuff’, and at the sign. A couple of people passing by gave us strange looks, and I wasn’t sure if they thought we might be casing the place (fingers crossed that the shop doesn’t get broken into any time soon, or Juniordwarf might receive a visit from the cops . . .).

He’s very excited because I’m going to print some photos of him and his best friend so that he can do his own scrapbooking page. I told him that once we get the photos he can pick out some paper from the shop to do his page, and he’s really looking forward to that.

Once I managed to drag him away from the shop, we did a tour down the main street, so he could examine the doors of all the other shops to see if they were open or closed, on the way to the DVD store to return some DVDs for Slabs.

Juniordwarf said he wanted to look at the numbers. Not being a regular in that shop, I had no idea what he meant, until he dragged me into the shop, to the wall where the top 100 DVDs are displayed. He then walked along that wall counting from one to one hundred (which Slabs says he’s done before), and then all the way back again counting back to one (which is a new development).

Then he was ready to go.

After another detour, we headed for home. We weren’t far from home when I noticed him lagging a bit. He said, ‘I need to be carried.’ 

I managed to convince him that he didn’t. My back would not have thanked me for lugging a four year old the rest of the way home. So we made it home under our own steam and I didn't need rescuing. All in all, about a five kilometre round trip.

Not a bad morning walk.