Tom and I have long been a fan of Ikea. It's one of our favorite places to visit together - weird I know. Instead of stressing us out, it makes us excited with possibilities. It helps that our mammoth of a car Penny fits almost everything we could possibly want fairly easily. We don't get there often, so by the time we do, we'll have a years worth of ideas and projects and things we want to get while we're there.
So we've been wanting to go for a while, but one thing has been making us hesitate - baby E. We've yet to find a babysitter near us (seriously how do you do this??) so he'd be coming with us. Would it be overwhelming for him? Would it mess up his nap schedule? Were we doomed to a stressful trip with a screaming baby that would make us never want to go back?
We should have known that E would inherit our love for the place. Of course we also planned ahead to give us the greatest chance of success. Since Ikea doesn't open all that early, we stayed home in the morning and E took his normal first nap. He can survive on one nap, so although it's not ideal, we knew we'd be okay after that. We packed lots of snacks, and a full diaper bag, and took off.
E loved sitting in the cart and looking at all the people, lights, and especially the ceiling fans. He was mostly quiet, taking things in, but towards the end he really started enjoying himself and made quite a few friends. We play peek a boo in line to pay, we ate snacks through the warehouse aisles, and we touched a lot of textiles and plants in the marketplace.
We also managed to get through there in maybe an hour and a half? I'm not sure how we managed to go so fast, because we got A LOT of stuff. Curtains, and hand towels and train sets for E. Cat toys, and planters, and a children's table and chairs set (we got a lot for E!). Some things are for now and some for later, because who knows when we'll get back there.
One of our favorite parts of Ikea, is of course the super cheap food. E decided he liked it too, and ate an entire slice of pizza by himself. He never got fussy, never whined, it was an awesome day. I even got to enjoy another radioactive green drink, that I had the last time we were at Ikea! And the best part was, E fell asleep on the car ride home, making it nice and relaxing (and we felt better since he was getting some more rest). Of course we should have known that Mr. I love sleep wouldn't skip any naps, so even though he woke up the minute we got off the highway, he demanded to go back to sleep once we got home.
It was a good day. I daresay I'd do it again!
