My Productive, Inexpensive, and Overall Fun Trip To Ikea

I drove approximately 14 hours to get to Ikea yesterday, but didn't come home with the lamp I originally went for. That's okay, because I did come home with approximately 900 things I didn't go after, but convinced myself I really needed. But still, we ate lunch for under $5, the kids crawled under the covers of every. single. bed. in the store and pretended to snore (very loudly) and I am nothing if not a good parent to allow them to do so. Around hour 3 of browsing and exclaiming "Ooooh! A 39 cent lemon juicer! I NEEEEEEED it!" the Chickies began to get cranky and acted out by pulling each other's hair, running into my heels with the shopping cart and arguing about who got to hold the two-pack of green fly swatters shaped like an actual fly. Then came the meltdown of all meltdowns. There was this blue plastic pig that was sitting out of place on a box of dinnerware. Lulu picked it up and announced that he would be joining us for the car ride home. To which I announced, "Ummm, no." True, he was only $1.99, but who needs useless things like blue plastic pigs when you can have a 94 pack of vanilla scented tea lights? Anyway, they incessantly argued over who got to hold the pig next and generally got on my last nerve, so I took the pig away and relocated him into a colander. And you would think I beheaded a Barbie or something. Blondie screamed, turned red, and kicked me in the stomach, all the while snot flowing freely out of her nose. Lulu's lip stuck out and she then screamed, jumped up and down and then collapsed onto the floor in a pretty impressive display of drama. "But I want the pig! He loves me! He'll be lonely without me! I don't like you anymore!" Oh, the humility. Luckily, Ikea is not very busy on Wednesday mornings. This allowed me to hide in a corner behind some lamp shades and scold the every livin' daylights out of them. And then everything was fine and they started telling me how much they really liked the pots of lucky bamboo and how, if I would buy them one they would behave. To which I responded like any good mother, "How 'bout you behave and then i'll let you come home with me?"