Since I last posted we have been besieged by bugs. Little microscopic ones, that bring with them high fevers, headaches, sore throats, body aches, and general unhappiness. Yes, we were all wiped out with the flu. Thankfully, I guess, I got it last, so everyone else was well tended to and cared for. Then when it was my turn, Chris totally came through, (and his boss, too for letting him). He came home early Thursday afternoon and brought me tea and took the kids outside so I could sleep, and then worked from home as well on Friday so I could spend most of the day either in bed or lying on the couch semi-conscious. Because of that luxury of actually staying in bed and sleeping while sick, I was all better come Saturday morning, ok, ok, maybe I still had a slight fever, but only very slight. And besides, we had planned on going to my absolute favorite store of all time. I couldn't miss out!
What store is that? Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with crafts of any kind. But I love to walk around and be inspired with creativity and dream of all the fun I could have with whatever they are displaying. Still don't know? It's IKEA of course! And any of you lucky enough to have been in our home know that. Why? It's a combination of their style of furniture, the quality, and the price. It's very well built, out of good, quality materials, and looks nice and clean in our home. But if the kids trash it (either on accident or on purpose) it doesn't inspire hours of wailing because of what it will cost to replace it. Plus, all the couch cushions and seat covers are washable. A must with small children. We ended up being there for the usual 2 1/2 hours. Why so long? I don't know about the ones in the States, but the ones here are built like Las Vegas Casinos. You can't find an exit to save your life. In order to leave, you literally have to walk through practically the entire store, top to bottom. It is definitely not a run in and grab something kind of place. We did see a few rebels yesterday, though, anxiously waiting until someone came up the stairs and opened the automatic barricades, so they could sneak past and make a quick exit, rather than walk through the whole place. It really bugs some people, but me, I go there and purpose to stroll around and look at all the displays, so I don't really mind. And they do have a few shortcuts, although they aren't well marked if you are really in a hurry. As I said, the place is like a casino, they don't want you leaving until you've spent every last dime you brought with you.
Nick and Alexandra hung with us, while Sarah, Sophie, and Noah went to the playplace. That is their term for it. They all love it, and run to get their shoes off as fast as possible, then hang on the gate by the entrance, bouncing up and down, chanting over and over, "Hurry up, Mama! Hurry up, Mama!" You see, you don't just drop your children off, you have to fill out this sheet of paper with their names, ages, address, telephone number, my name, my id number, and then you sign it to verify it is all true. Then you hand that over to the workers, they check your id, stamp your hand, give you a cellphone for emergencies, take your bucket filled with your kids shoes and jackets, put stickers on your children with their names, and THEN and only THEN, can they finally go in to play. It is absolutely excruciating for them, Sarah in particular, to have to wait for all this to be accomplished. Especially when the ball pit is RIGHT THERE, they can see it, hear it, but Can't. Get. In. It. To top it off, I made them pose for a picture first, which came out too blurry due to being taken with my camera phone with no flash. But eventually they got in, and only a promise of a hot dog and ice cream cone got them back out again.
This is Noah sitting on the little bench where you take your shoes off. He was trying to smile without winking, and ended up closing both eyes instead. It's really hard to stop that winking habit, I guess. It is cute, but not for every picture.
We have quite a list of things we would still like to get for the apartment, and yesterday we picked up a few of them. Three large lamps, another bookcase for the reading room, and a super thin comforter and cover for the bedroom. (I washed our old one, which was fine. Then tossed it in the dryer where it promptly melted, not fine.) Of course, we also managed to pick up a few non-necessities as well, but that is just how it is there for me. And I was even holding myself back! Good thing it is far enough away, I can't just run on over when I have a spare few minutes while I am out running errands. I seriously get a little crazy in there, and need Chris to gently guide me back to reality.
Alexandra rode around in a shopping cart for part of the trip, but Nic
k or I had to keep a hold of her so she wouldn't tip over. I know she isn't ready to sit up, but she is just so heavy to carry the whole time, we decided to let her ride for just a bit. She kept herself entertained by chewing on anything that came close to her mouth. And yes, if you think her head is looking even more bald, it is. She has large patches where nothing, not even fuzz grows. It is so soft and smooth, though. The kids and I love to rub our cheeks on it. Probably why there isn't any new growth!
While Chris was finding out where the brightest halogen lightbulbs were located, Nick took a little rest on these lamps. They are soft plastic, and said right on them that they were made for sitting on. I may get one for the kids play area upstairs. And no, they weren't hot at all, for how bright they were. How can you not love a place that makes lamps you can sit on? And now for the confessional stage of my entry. We stole a shopping cart from this very spot, just seconds later. It is behind that other shopping cart you see in the top right hand corner.
Alexandra didn't like sitting up anymore, so I was carrying her. All our items were in a large plastic shopping bag I had on my shoulder, so we didn't need our cart, so we left it with the other carts on the bottom floor. Then when we got to the light section it was a big "Doh!" moment, because those suckers are heavy. This store is huge, we did not want to have to walk all the way back to where we had left our other shopping cart. We decided to only get one lamp, because that was all Chris could carry. But we really needed three. Then he tried to have Nick carry one, but that didn't work so well. It would have taken us another hour to get out of there. The whole time this exchange was going on, I had been keeping my eye on this abandoned cart. It had two small boxes of kitchen stuff in it, but seriously, it was there before we were, and everyone had come and gone that it could have possibly belonged to.
So I convinced Chris it had been ditched by someone else and was ours for the taking. He wasn't quite sure, and watched all the customers in the vicinity for a while, before coming to the same conclusion I had. It didn't belong to anyone there. So he walked over, acting casual of course, then ducked down behind a display so no one could see him, grabbed the stuff out of the cart, left it on a shelf, then stood up, glancing around furtively the whole time, and pushed the cart over to us as quickly as possible. I am trying to not draw attention to ourselves, but am laughing quite a bit so not really helping. Nick is completely freaked out that we have just broken a big time rule and stolen someone's cart. "Mom, Pops is taking that cart! Are we allowed to take that cart? What if that is somebody's cart? We're stealing their cart!" "Ssshh! Nick, it's okay, I promise. We aren't stealing that cart." Chris explained that we weren't taking it out of the store, and no one had paid to be able to use it, (a custom with most shopping carts here in Switzerland), so it was okay to take it. That calmed him down finally and we were on our way. And no, no one was heard calling out from behind, "Hey, where's my cart?"
Curious what my title says? It isn't German at all. It's Swedish for "How much is it?"