>Family-Friendly

>First I have to say that I never appreciate how addicted to the internet I am until our cable modem stops working (or router or whatever other piece of hardware is the bane of my existence at the time).  In trying to rearrange our house and convert our office into a second baby’s room, we moved the dratted cable modem.  This resulted in its being in and out (mostly out) for five days until we finally figured out how to fix it.  And when I say ‘we,’ I mean my husband fixed it when he got back from a three-day weekend trip to CT.  No matter how tech-savvy I think I’ve become, I am eventually humbled by some problem I need him to fix.  Sigh.  But I digress.

The point is that I can’t believe how entwined my life has become with the internet, and if it hadn’t been for my Crackberry, I would’ve been freaking out.  Or doing more chores.  Hard to say.

Ok, all of that is to say that I’m back!  And here is the story of last week’s Friday Field Trip.

I decided to take Sebastian to Ikea.  I know, that doesn’t seem like the most inspired field trip idea, but I really needed some cheap organizers and such for the new nursery and Ikea touts itself as being super family friendly, so I thought why not?  Here’s the overview:

The Good:
~I got a ton of great stuff, all of which was under ten dollars.  Seriously, Ikea is worse than Target for luring me in to buy two things and coming out with twenty.  But it was only six dollars!  I HAD to buy it! 
~Sebastian loved the kids’ section and played with all of their sample toys, tested out all of their kid-sized furniture, and was just generally pleasant to be around until… well, keep reading.

The Bad:
I spent far more money than I was intending to with my original list of two items.  But I’m returning about $30 worth that I ended up not needing, and the rest has already been put to good use, so I’ve decided that this could be much worse.

The Ugly:
I finished my shopping early, Sebastian was being immensely cooperative, and I thought, Why not have an early lunch here before heading home?  Why, oh why, did I not respond to myself, “Because that would be pushing your luck, lady.  Get in the car”?  Sigh.

We had lunch while other people’s children zoomed around, so I was feeling pretty confident.  Then I thought Sebastian might need to zoom around a little himself so that he’d be ready to wait while I checked out and then drove us home.  I steered him to the kids’ area in the restaurant where he proceeded to play until two other boys came within two feet of him.  Really, they weren’t even touching him or the toys he was using, but he decided to step right up and give one of them a shove.  I was shocked, immediately corrected him, at which point I set up a really interesting game.  Since he doesn’t usually behave like this, he decided to try it out again, this time reaching to shove the other boy while looking at me.  Clearly he was not angry.  This was a test.

I informed him that he could play nicely or we could leave.  He wanted to play nicely.  Ok, last chance.  It took about two minutes before he reached his chubby arms out to try to shove again (yes, looking at me again).  I picked him up to carry him out of the play area, at which point he thought it was a good plan to put his two hands on either side of my face and try to push ME away from him.  Oh. boy.

I then proceeded to stuff his screaming, thrashing self into the stroller and buckle him in, all the while telling him that I knew he was mad, but pushing is not kind and it was time for us to leave.  Once we got moving, he more or less calmed down (until we got to the car, when meltdown #2 happened).

But here’s the thing.  I decided that Ikea really is family-friendly.  Know how I could tell?  Not one person even looked at me while my child pitched his enormous fit.  

I’ll definitely be going back.  And coming home before lunch.