Shües

I know, I know, I was just there, but when Shep looked up at me with his little saucer eyes and said, “I want to go to IKEA,” what was I supposed to do? Say no? And crush his little home organizing spirit? I think not.

Before Tom could protest too loudly, we were out the door for our first family trip to IKEA.

Which, for the record, would have gone swimmingly, if everything had gone according to plan. We got there without waiting a moment in traffic and sailed right into a parking spot. As I patted myself on the back, we began to unload. Ellery? Check. Shep? Check. Neko? Ch…wait. There’s Neko, but something is missing.

Yes, somehow Neko walked out of the house without her shoes. I have no idea how this slipped by us, but it happened. So we packed back in the car and hit a Payless where we scored these little gems, strictly because they were the cheapest shoes in her size.

By the time we got back, they weren’t letting anyone into the parking lot, so we went to eat pancakes. After pancakes we managed to park, but we clearly lost our minds in the interim, because not only did we go home with hot pink polka dot flip-flops, but we also managed to acquire a large, stuffed whale which is nearly as big as Neko.

I have now discovered a new law of physics. (Akiko, I’ll need to discuss with Paul how I should go about getting published.) When shopping with children at IKEA, the mass that you will contain in neat little swedish totes and shelves is directly equivalent to the mass of brightly colored objects your children will con you into buying in exchange for not completely imploding in all other areas of the store. Thus, even though you think you arrive home more organized and with more things neatly tucked away, the sum total of progress made in the battle of you vs. stuff is, in fact, zero.