Mama Byrd

We went to Dallas this weekend so that Lannie and Caleb could introduce Phillip to the wonders of professional soccer. Phillip was about as impressed as an 11-month-old could be at a night game– he promptly fell asleep.

Following a tip from Ben and Heather’s blog, we decided to visit Ikea, which was just down the street from our hotel. We didn’t know much of anything about Ikea, but I had a slight inkling that they sell some kind of furniture, since Vern from Trading Spaces fills all of his redesign projects with stuff from Ikea.

Good heavenly gracious! What a shrine to western commercialism! We found 4 U-haul trucks in the parking lot, apparently waiting for people to literally load up a truckload of stuff and haul it home.

We spent an hour just walking around the store with our mouths hanging open, trying not to get lost. Ikea has showroom after showroom of perfectly proportioned living spaces, complete with the square footage required for this set-up and price tag for the whole she-bang (just in case you are so completely uncreative that you point to the showroom of furniture and say, “Give me everything in there and put it in the U-haul outside.”)

Ikea also has a free daycare at the door, so that you can drop off your tot for an hour while you spend your entire paycheck on furniture and places to put all your stuff once you get it out of the U-haul. Ellie insisted on using the daycare, where she played in a ball pit, watched cartoons and colored pictures of Swedish fairy creatures. Funny how stuff that sounds like fun to her would be an endless supply of torture devices for Caleb. Needless to say, he had more fun shopping with us.

We did find it ironic that Ben and Heather were able to find an Ikea in Northern England, but we can’t find one closer than 5 1/2 hours away from us. I guess Arkansas really is the middle of nowhere.

Filed under: Uncategorized on September 5th, 2006