I heart Ikea

A few days ago we went to Ikea to pick up some stuff for Christmas. We're making an 'Alphabet Wall' for Belle for a gift and needed picture frames. We also thought we'd check out the holiday sale. We went in and found something totally unexpected, great storage solutions for the kitchen set we bought Isabella. We went through the check out and after wards noted that they charged us twice for an item. We headed over to the Customer Service. While the Ikea worker was adjusting our receipt she noted that one of our totes was cracked and sent someone to get us a new one. Isabella ran over to play and was enjoying herself. Brooklyn had a small melt down, (just tiny), and I was gathering my wits again. All of a sudden the Ikea worker said "It might be a few minutes, I'll get you guys something for your wait.". Then a manager comes over and gave us coupons for free drinks and hot dogs! All we were doing was waiting around. I heart Ikea.

However, I un-heart the Ikea crowd. Now, it's just a small demographic of them, which I wont identify. You know the crowd I'm talking about in your neighborhood. There are the fun people, (which I enjoy), they look at our girls and then coo to their men: "They're so adorable!" and then search around for my husband to see what two people could make children this beautiful and if they have a chance at getting the same. (I'm not boasting I'm just saying people like the reassurance that two negatives do in fact make a positive). But then there are the others-the ones who walked past me and spoke another language and then all of a sudden exclaimed "It's alive!". I was holding Brooklyn on my hip so she was facing away from me enjoying the store. This family thought Brooklyn was a doll I was carrying for Isabella. Now if it ended there, cool. Or even when they exclaimed, "I thought she was a doll. My she's beautiful.". End discussion, cool. But when they start mauling her trying to find out that she is in fact a doll and we're just fooling them, I start to get irked. And once one person is mauling my daughters other people feel they can do the same. Then I get very irked and literally push Nick into an elevator and put Brooklyn back in her car seat to spare her further maulings. Why do people treat kids like that? When I see a cute kid, I might talk to them or play peek a boo around store shelves or something, but I would never touch them. I definitely un-heart some Ikea shoppers.