Nonni's Birthday Trip

I gave my mom a U-Haul for her 60^th birthday. With it, I provided a driver (me) and a hotel room in either Charlotte, Atlanta, or Orlando, where she could relax and unwind after an all-day outing at the local IKEA.

If you’ve been to an IKEA home furnishings store, you understand the need for a hotel room. It’s like an adult adventure park, only instead of rides, the attractions are bargains and gadgets and textiles, oh my. The building itself is huge, lumbering in the distance long before you pull into the parking lot, and you almost expect parking attendants to be waving you into your spot when you finally make it to the furniture mecca. Then, when you enter, you are greeted by minions of blue vested characters who are willing to chaperone your kids in playland or provide you with a map (yes! A map!), a ruler, and large yellow bag for all of the items you find while following the yellow brick road through the furniture showrooms. Standing in the lobby in front of that single escalator that leads to adventure, you feel like anything is possible.

If you’ve been to an IKEA but live far away from the store, you understand the need for a U-Haul. You cannot walk out of IKEA with a small shopping bag. No. You will see more things you didn’t know you needed in 5 minutes in an IKEA than you will see in your whole lifetime at Wal-Mart. Those blue-vested greeters give you a big yellow bag knowing you’ll upgrade to a big silver shopping cart halfway through the store and that’ll you’ll upgrade to a big blue furniture cart by the time you hit the warehouse.

So last weekend, Mom, Dad, Lissy, and I threw our luggage into the back of Larry’s truck and towed a U-Haul to Charlotte. This trip wasn’t entirely altruistic; I needed some new bedroom furniture and garage storage shelves, and more importantly, I needed a full night’s asleep away from my twins. And it didn’t hurt that Larry had to play primary caregiver to the twins for 36 hours, either. We were coming off of a week of very little sleep (for me and the twins, anyway), and I thought it would be good for him to see how difficult the nights could be (ironically, they both slept through the night for the first time in 2 months that evening. Go figure).

We spent four hours in IKEA. I easily had another hour or two in me, but we knew when we brought a member of the male species that there was a time limit on our shopping fun. But in that four hour period, we bought enough stuff to nearly fill a 5 x 8 U-Haul. It’s probably a good thing that Dad reigned us all in; the Children’s IKEA had so many more things I wanted to buy. I got the boys a kids’ table and chairs, an easel, a bathmat, outlet protectors, plates, bowls, bibs, and most importantly, highchairs.

I had been researching highchairs for a month, as it was clear that I could not feed the boys in their bumbo seats forever. Grayden’s legs are so chubby he barely fits in the seat anymore, and we really needed something with an attached tray that he couldn’t force his way out of. I was not excited about spending $200 to $300 on highchairs, but that’s what two were going to cost us. Until I got to IKEA and discovered their $20 Antilop highchair. Plain, simple, sturdy, cheap. It’s easy to clean and it gets the job done.

 

Now if IKEA only made convertible car seats….