Weekend wisdom

I think I can honestly say, this is the first weekend of "two" where I didn't feel stressed out the entire time. Clearly the key to toddlers is to get them the 'eff out of the house. So that's what we did - both mornings.

Saturday was a standard random Ikea visit. You see - I'm not sure if you've noticed or not - but I'm a touch crazy. Which sometimes manifests itself in random proclamations of things THAT WE MUST BUY. BECAUSE WE NEED THEM. DESPERATELY!!! OH HOW HAVE WE LIVED LIFE THIS FAR WITHOUT THIS MUCH NEEDED ITEM??!?!?!

Enter: my insistence that we visit Ikea. On a Saturday morning. To buy a step stool. A small, two-tiered step-stool that was ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for Maddie to be able to wash her hands (because she's a shorty and all kids stools are about 1 inch too low for her to really get in there at the sink. You know what I mean?). Clearly this was a necessity.

I'm still not entirely certain how or why the Hubs agreed to this (looking back now) ridonkulous request. Saturday morning? Ikea? Yes, I'm an idiot.

But off we went - battling crowds. Looking through the children's section, then through the kitchen section, then through the dining section (every Ikea personnel we asked about said stool seemed to think it was in a different area of the store). Turns out there were NONE on display, but according to their handy-dandy inventory count - there were 2 in the warehouse. So down to self-serve we went. And looked. And yes - just as you may have suspected, 2 in inventory at Ikea means ZERO on the shelf. So two hours later, stomachs full of nasty Ikea food (seriously - my first time eating there - it's bad. Like, REALLY. BAD.), we left the store empty handed...

Hubs told me he was certain he had earned a lot of "points" that morning...


However - that managed to kill a full weekend morning. And guess who thinks Ikea rocks the large one? Because she can run around like a deranged monkey, play on random couches and underneath random tables and essentially be the bane of every other shoppers existence? Miss Madds of course. Ikea is like a playground to her - and she was d.o.w.n.

Since our Saturday road trip went so swimmingly, I made the suggestion that we try to do something Sunday morning as well. So to the Zoo we went. Getting there just past 9am we beat the crowds, beat the heat and managed to do all the "interesting" animals before lunch time. We hightailed it out of there just as the crowds closed in, threatening to send Hubs into ultra-moody-mode, and even managed to grab lunch at home instead of succumbing to a $12 hotdog.

I'd love to share pictures of our first full-family-attended trip to the zoo, but someone forgot the camera in the car and we didn't realize it until we were about a mile away from the entrance. That someone may have forfeited some of his "points" from Saturday on that move.

So that's that - we kept our sanity this weekend by simply not being at home. Doing stuff entertains your cranky toddler. Imagine that...

xxoo.S