Our family

Our family

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

A trip to Ikea

So what is a trip to Ikea? What is the big deal? We were actually pretty excited to go because they have a drop off for the kids. A playspace where bored teenage girls stand around and stare of vacantly thinking of anything but toddlers. Sounds good enough for my kids.

We wait on the line which is about 30 minutes long, because this apparently is good enough for most people's children. We say 5 kids. They say what? Uh five kids we want to drop off these 5. Are they potty trained? Sure. Are they wearing diapers? no. yes. what is the right answer? No. no they are not. Are they tall enough? Tall enough for what the toddle NBA? Whatever. check. tall enough. We never took in a group this big before. Do we get a prize. No. They give us a buzzer and one hour of freedom. Hipp Hipp horay. Oh wait Mark won't go. But still just one lousy toddle no problem.

Except when we walk away and go to the elevator Mark throws a fit. He DOES want to go now. Steve waits on line again. This time for 40 Minutes. He gets to the front and guess what? Mark won't let them stamp his hand. Matthew comes over and tries to calm him down to no avail. So now we still have Mark and now only 20 minutes left. Still though 2o minutes. The place is a mad house. We hastily throw some items in the cart and ...BUZZ. They want us back. We pick up the very happy group. Put on their shoes and begin to shop. Cara needs the potty. It is out of order. I wait 25 minutes to use the only single stalled bano in the joint. Cara makes it. I return to the crew. Mikey say BANO! uh oh too late and there is a puddle on the floor. We do the only thing we can think of and leave quickly, trying to look innocent and unaware of the puddle on the floor.

We check out and realize that the wonderfully Green company does not give out bags. So we head to the food court, because it got late, very late. There is a huge escalator up to the food court we have all of our purchases, 7 coats and five kids. 3 of which are only 2! I put Cara on she loses her balance and falls. I rush on and pick her up. She is so scared. A kind gentleman takes an unhappy Mikey's hand and helps Steve get the rest of the brood up the escalator.

I see Steve his hands are full of measuring cups, picture frames, and other assorted household items. He looks like a crazy man carting all of his household items that are unwrapped to the food court. Like if he is afraid he may be called on to suddenly measure dry ingredients and feels a compulsion to be prepared for all contingencies. With his masses of children trailing behind him.

It was ridiculous. Though we did appreciate the play space insistence that the kids where socks. Knowing that Mikey's socks are soaked in pee, from our little emergency at IKEA.

Oh how we laughed.