IKEA

For some reason I couldn't sleep at all last night and I was knackered by this afternoon. When Olivia went down for a nap, I slept too and didn't wake up for two and a half hours!

The nap felt great but I was worried about how I was going to wear her out before bedtime. Louis was working all day and night, again, so it was up to just me and I decided to take her to Ikea for the first time.

We left about 4:00 pm and got there without any real traffic, which was nice. I prepped myself ahead of time by saying I would let her explore wherever and whatever she wanted and we would not be in a rush. The first thing she loved was the escalator. We're still learning how to safely hop on together and it must look hilarious to a bystander.

We rode the escalator up, then the elevator down to the marketplace so we could shop and play with the kids stuff. Except, after we covered the entire bottom floor, I discovered that they had moved the kids section upstairs. Guess it's been a long time since I've been there.

We started playing in the kids area when she announced that she had seen food (signs) and that she wanted to eat. We ordered fruit, soup, salmon, and, of course, french fries. The food was pretty good. It was more than enough for the two of us.

After we ate, I asked about needing to go potty and felt her crotch to see how full the pull-up was and then we headed back to play.

We were upstairs playing in the kids area (which she LOVED) with a cash register and a kitchen set, when a super loud alarm came on and the staff person who was nearest to us yelled, "everybody out, you need to evacuate!" Something about a code whatever in the kitchen, which was right behind us. People started running toward the stairs and elevator and my little girl refused to come out of her circus tent.

I finally dragged her out, the whole time worrying about what the reason for evacuation was, and rushed for the stairs. As I was carrying her, two things happened. First, it was announced that the alarm was a false alarm due to technical difficulties, and second, I noticed my whole hand was wet because she had wet through her pull-up and outfit. We headed back to quickly grab our cart so we could leave and I sniffed my hand. Not urine.

Ugh.

Very luckily for me, Ikea has a family changing room that is stocked with diapers and wipes and a sink. Phew. It's amazing how the biggest and worse messes always seem to happen when there's only one parent on duty.

We *finally* managed to get to the registers to pay for our straws, toilet brush, cutting board, and new seat cushions. Then, I got lost trying to find the freeway. Good grief.

What an experience. I did love how much fun she had in the kids area and at dinner. I think we'll go back again. I noticed some "family parking" signs as we were leaving and I totally appreciate their effort to be family-friendly. I just felt like I needed a drink when we were done. 

That whole "wear her out before bedtime" plan always backfires on me.