电梯 (Elevator, escalator or automatic walkway)

Jonathan's obsession right now is Dianti - elevator or escalator or automatic walkway at the airports. Strictly speaking, dianti means elevator. There are other Chinese words for escalator and walkway but for simplicity with a toddler, we call all of them Dianti. Second to that is pushing a cart around. For the 2 weeks in China, every day he got to ride on dianti of one kind or another. The first thing from his mouth after he wakes up is Dianti after Mama and Baba. We has had countless rides at airports, apartment buildings, hotels, and stores. He would go with anyone who offered to take him to ride on Dianti. This happens to be the first non-repetitive 2 sylible words he speaks. The second one is shoes in Chinese (xiezi). None of our relatives had a toy push cart, he pushed anything that he could physically move, foot stools, chairs and various size boxes.

Since we don't live in apartments anymore and we don't have an elevator in our home, his desires for Dianti had not been met since we returned from China. Today I took him to Boston Store to keep my promise of letting him ride on dianti. We went up and down on the escalator 7 rounds. Then he spotted a shopping cart. He pushed the cart around half the store and saw the escalator again. He wanted to push the cart onto the escalator so I told him we could push the cart onto a different Dianti, elevator. He pushed the cart into the elevator, rode to the second floor, pushed the cart out and then back into to the elevator, down to the first floor, out, then in and then up on the second floor. We went in and out, up and down 8 rounds. Then he decided this wasn't fun anymore and pushed the cart out. within 30 seconds, he let go of the cart but prompted fell onto the floor - too tired, I think. After that he let me push him in the cart for a little bit and then wanted to get the cart up the escalator again. I decided then it was time to go.

My new idea of shopping with a toddler is taking him up and down the escalator a dozen times until he gets tired. Then I can push him in the cart and shop for whatever I want - only one item at a time. Otherwise I may risk having things thrown out of the cart.