Whoo Boy! I was recognized tonight

I was recognized tonight –“Look! It’s the Mother of Twins!” I heard, as I was in the children’s department of the new neighborhood Ikea. That store is going to be the Barnes and Noble pick up joint of the 21-century. Remember when everyone used to troll the aisles of B and N in the late 90’s to see who was shopping for what… and for whom? But Ikea is much better for that, number one, if you are cool enough to go there, you are bound to meet cool people. Number two, the whole showroom is set up for socializing – “Please come in and sit in my bedroom and hang out!” coax the signs. “Please sit down, put your feet up and read the biography of Ingmar Bergman!” That is, if you can read Swedish. The thing that didn’t really work about B and N (or so I heard) was that people felt somewhat surreptitious about pretending to shop, when they were really just mangling the glossy periodicals and flipping through books trying to check out that guy in the Home Improvements Section. In Ikea you can literally go in, play on the furniture and stroll out, and no one is any wiser about whether you are going to stop in the Warehouse to collect the items you were lolling all over, or if you are just going home.

Anyway, we had gone to the store to pick up the kitchen cabinets we had ordered on opening day, and went upstairs to have some meatballs before shopping (as one does). I had taken one of boys over to this blue Ultraseude covered air filled thing on the floor, which looked rather amusing. It was a floor cushion/dog bed/extra mattress for guests/toy like thing and few little ones were bouncing around on it. My DH was in the aisle with the other baby, and I had just put the baby on the amorphous object when I was “recognized”. I thought the lady who knew me looked familiar, but wasn’t sure until she called out to her friend – “This is the mama I met in Char-Bucks; I just sent you her blog today!”

Needless to mention, I felt a little buzz – oooh! I’m so cool! Immediately followed by a dad fish out of Finding Nemo feeling – Oh, dear…do I have to be funny now? But the ladies, including the one I had encountered in the ubiquitous home of overpriced cappuccino about a month ago, were very nice and invited me to a playgroup. Gosh, a play group…what should I wear?

It was pretty surreal hearing a practical stranger ask how my baby sitters were working out. I am sorry to say they really aren’t. Well, one is; the older one relates nicely with the munchkins and is pretty reliable too. (Yeah, “older.” So, that makes her what? 17?) But the other was supposed to have been with me five times so far and she has shown up twice. Into each life…I’ll have to keep hunting. (Note to self: When you commit a gloat/celebration/an oh-yay-this-is-working-out to blog entry, it seems to fall apart (see June 29th – Two Dwarf Day), so be sure it’s workin’ before you start a-braggin’.)

I really need to get this baby sitter thing organized so I can blog/write/create during the daylight hours when the old bean is more fizzy with life. Right now I have one baby in the nursery bed (on an Ikea duvet cover with matching pillow cases, circa 1993 (Ikea new Jersey, thank you!)) making those sweet little sleeping baby heavy breathing noises. The other one is still in his car seat – sniffle sniffle snore. He got all worn out crawling around in the Entrega de Muebles Department (That’s Furniture Pick-up to you, Gringo. I think it’s funny to read the Spanish sub-texts and pretend I am a stranger in a foreign land. I will select Spanish over English on the screen at the self-checkout at the market just to hear – Gracias por comprate al “Stop y Shop”) then he fell asleep in the car en route home. He’s now on the floor of the bedroom. It’s 10:45 PM – and yes! I do know where my children are!