We actually went to IKEA this morning as planned and while Ben didn't bother to sleep until we were in sight of the actual store, he was gorgeous and well behaved and we had a grand time. He laughed his butt off through most of the store for no particular reason, which cracked people up. Well, I'm pretty sure some of them thought he was a little special because he would pull a sock off, stare at it then cackle but we were having fun. And in the rug department (we were just passing through, I wasn't trying to replace the roach's rug or anything), he actually leaned out of the cart & grabbed a gentleman who looked remarkably like Confucius's older brother and then laughed hysterically. Luckily, Brofucius found it amusing and didn't put a spell on us or anything. Wait, I think I have Confucius and Merlin's skills mixed up.
This story is already taking way too long so I'll put it in fast forward - good drive, good parking spot, fun shopping, bought lots of stuff, skipped the meatballs, Ben slept on the way home & we spent much of the afternoon putting together adorable things.
So, the whole point of the trip was to get some new furniture for Ben's room. Sadly we're not replacing the crib that looks like it's been attacked by badgers (ever since watching Ernest Goes to Camp, badgers top my list of predators) due to Ben's teething issues. I've moved his bookshelf into the office, where we've also moved his dresser/changing table so that he can have more room to play in his own room. I wanted to get him a table & chairs so we can start doing some crafty crap & eventually read/write there.
IKEA & every kids store have a million choices of kids tables but none of them thrilled my soul so I just dug my feet in & bought the good old standby LACK side table. They have some cute colours for it now but I couldn't decide on one so just got the dark brown to match his gnawed-upon bed. Also couldn't decide between the chairs or stools & all the gorgeous choices of colours in each so fiiiiinalllly just grabbed two yellow stools & one green chair. I was also going to buy a tiny rocking chair that Ben thought was the greatest thing on earth but they were sold out of it. I already had an awesome striped rug from a much earlier IKEA trip (I got a few in different colours at the time).
So the table & chairs are cute enough as presented here in Exhibit A:
And Exhibit B, which is short for Before.
As in before Ben fell over in the chair as predicted by his gifted mother.
But I am a fan of clutter and not leaving well enough alone so I also purchased some vinyl sticky animals to dress up the brown/black table. Then I couldn't resist sticking some on the chair & stools too. If you were here & made the mistake of standing still, I would have stuck one on you as well - that's just what I do. So Exhibit C & D are the finished product:
Yes, I got carried away with the stickers but once we need the table for actual writing, I can yank those suckers right back off. No harm done. I also got carried away with the whole Exhibit A thing but that's just because I actually forgot the word exhibit and had to google "court terms," then had to make it worth my while. C'est la vie. I'm not googling that to see if it's spelled right.
I was going to brag about my affordable, adorable solution but I just checked my receipt & those stupid stickers were twenty-five ding dang dollars!! Luckily, there are plenty left so Ben's room is going to be a sickly sweet jungle when I'm done with it. We're going to put shelves on the wall above the table (waaaay above, out of a certain toddler's reach) for all of Ben's books & we'll hang up the pictures that were on his old bookshelf. I'm just happy he has more room in his room to actually enjoy & we can move more of his toys back in there instead of most of them living in the den.
I also managed to get some gorgeous felt food for Ben's cute little kitchen but I think I might save those for Christmas, which gives me a little more time for him to lose all the kitchen accessories he already has before he has new ones to lose. AND they had finger puppets!! So I got two packs for the great plane ride, which is now less than 2 months away. I figure they'll entertain them for about 5 minutes then I can throw them, one by one, at people who give us the stink eye.
Okay, I need to go get my son some food. Even though we didn't visit the IKEA cafeteria this go 'round, I still managed to get sick this afternoon. Not sure what gave me the funk but I'm hoping Ben's tummy doesn't follow suit tonight. We have no grand plans for tomorrow - just a doctor's appointment where I will leave frustrated because the doctors keep refusing to hand over the magical Toddler Awesome Sleep Syrum that I know has to exist!! The medical community will rue the day they decided Ashley Moore Eisele Who Still Hasn't Legally Updated Her Name Because She Is Tired of Paperwork could deal with sleep deprivation. R-u-e the d-a-y.
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