Sharing Drinks at IKEA

Grandma’s last full day here. Waaaaah. It’s been so much fun having her here!

We decided to try IKEA again and all went well. We’d napped Wee Laddie in the morning. He does so much better that way (I really wish some of our on-base activities were in the afternoon). Had lunch there. While we were sitting there an elderly woman came over to our table with a glass of something and said some stuff to us, set the glass on the table and walked away.

I was in the midst of my usual blank stare but my mom said, “Danke,” so I gathered that the woman was leaving the rest of her beverage with us. It seemed odd, but people are always giving things to Wee Laddie and refills aren’t standard in Germany (although they are free at IKEA), so whatever. So about 5-10 minutes later, the woman comes back to retrieve her drink. I guess she’d wanted to go to the bathroom but was dining alone so was concerned (and reasonably so, I’m sure) that something would happen to her drink if she’d left just that on a table. I couldn’t help thinking about how embarrassing—but funny—it would have been had we decided to drink it.

Bought a new teapot (Wee Laddie accidentally broke the lid to mine several days ago) and a light fixture for Wee Laddie’s room. They have some there that are super-cheap (those paper lantern ones), so I thought I’d at least try the wiring… and if it doesn’t work and I have to throw the light away? Well, then it was under 10 euro.

While we were walking around IKEA, I mentioned to Wee Laddie that Grandma is going home tomorrow. He didn’t say much, but was clearly processing the info… a few minutes later he started sort of hitting me. I figured it was that “kill the messenger” thing, so I gave him a hug and told him that it’s okay to be upset about Grandma leaving but it’s not okay to hit me. He actually seemed to respond to that.

I had my German class tonight so I left it up to Grandma, Guitarman and Wee Laddie to decide who would tuck in Wee Laddie. Turns out he picked Daddy. Apparently he got pretty sad during tuck-in, but it was a little misdirected. He was asking about me and Guitarman said, “She’s at her German class.” Wee Laddie said, “Too much.” They must have clarified, because when I got home Guitarman told me that Wee Laddie thinks I’m gone too much. I guess that 1.5 hour class I do every week is just too much time away from my son. :P I had to laugh. Not that I don’t consider what my son thinks/feels, but sheesh. We might as well still have the whole umbilical cord attachment, for as much time as we spend apart. (Not that I’m complaining.)