My nine year old son asked me to take him to the mall Saturday morning.  It was the first free Saturday we've had in a while, as his basketball season just ended. He said he just wanted to walk around.  I had a couple of returns waiting in the back of my car, so it wasn't hard to persuade me to head to the mall with my boy.

We walked a lap of the very large mall, from start to finish.  One of the highlights of our walk (other than my returns at Saks and J Crew, "lady's stores") was Nike.  Clayton loves every sport.  His favorite ?  Whatever season is currently playing. We wandered the aisles, picking up things, commenting on colors.  We giggled at the tiny baby Nike gym shoes.  Clayton picked out two t shirts.  One shirts says something about dunking (season just ended) and the other one says something about baseball (season currently being played).

As we wandered the aisles, we found a display of jumpropes.  Clayton asked me if I liked to jump rope.  I said I did.  He said,"Then why don't you buy one?"  Why not ?  Along with the two t shirts, I bought a jump rope. 

When we got home I took the jump rope out of the package, adjusted the length and started jumping, right in the middle of the kitchen.  Jumping rope is fun !  Jumping rope isn't as easy now as it was when I was little.  I used to play jump rope with the kids on the playground when I did recess duty.  It was fun then, but I never got very "high" (number of uninterrupted jumps) because the little people had trouble getting the rope over my head consistently. 

My daughter wanted in on the jump rope action right away.  In fact, she bet her dad a cannoli that she could make it to 100.  She did, and dad had to go out and get her a cannoli.  She wanted two, but she couldn't get to 200 jumps in a row.  Clayton, who motivated me to buy the jump rope, hasn't made it to 100 yet.  But he's doing better now that his sister showed him how to shorten the rope by twisting it around his hands.

We've all been having fun with my new Nike jump rope.  Who knew ?  When I headed to the mall with Clayton I wasn't sure what we would do or what we would get.  In addition to doing my returns, and spending some time chatting with my boy, we got some family fun in the form of a jump rope.

You never know what you might find at the mall.