We’re leaving tomorrow and I’m not one bit ready. I have to do laundry still and wash the car. I also have to pack some suitcases and figure out some kind of emergency fun kit for an eight hour road trip with a toddler.

What am I doing instead? (Besides typing this blog of course.) I’m sitting here making a Baby Bug calendar for 2008. Some of you asked how I made my calendar that you saw on my card wall of fame. I use Qoop through Flickr. They are decent quality for what they are.

Just make sure you don’t position your baby’s head on the page so she gets a punch hole right next to her eyeball and it looks like someone shot her in the head. I’m sure that was lots of fun for all my relatives to gaze at for the month of May.

Speaking of gazing, I’m also looking out my front door (that is a sliding glass door so I can look right through it) at a giant box. A giant box that is going to be a shelf (except it will be horizontal not vertical) in Baby Bug’s room to store all her toys. I’m so excited about it. I’d put it together myself right this minute if I could just lift the dumb thing. It seriously weighs 200 pounds. I know IKEA furniture is cheap but this shelf must be made of solid lead or compound wood matter or something. It is HEAVY. Or “Hehbby” as Baby Bug says.

I know I’m not supposed to be shopping at IKEA anymore after the great desk explosion of 2007 but where else am I supposed to get cheap furniture that I can track down in a single afternoon? I have no time for shopping or scouting out garage sales and Craig’s list anymore. I’ve snooped in the trash and there was NOTHING. Finally, I just buckled and bought exactly what I wanted for ONLY $79. You can’t beat that. Let’s just hope it isn’t made of lead or explodes.

I love IKEA and I hate IKEA. I love the simple lines of their furniture but I hate that it falls apart. I love that everything is affordable but I hate that they keep their prices low by cutting other places, like in the customer service department. I love their fun show room that you can walk around and pretend to play house in but I hate that you have to hoof three-thousand miles to get to your box of furniture in their warehouse. I also hate how when you are three thousand miles away down some long dark alley of towering boxes, there isn’t a soul around to help you lift a 200-pound box.

You see that box up there that Baby Bug is surfing on? I bought that all by myself. I mean ALL BY MYSELF. I did not speak to one human being from the time I walked into IKEA until the time I walked out. I didn’t even talk to one person in the parking lot as I teeter-tottered it into my trunk ALL BY MYSELF. Not a peep. Not counting Baby Bug of course. With her I had a running commentary about the whole episode.

I was just waiting for someone to say, “Please don’t let your child ride on top of the box while you wheel it down the aisle.” To which I would reply, “Oh! Please help me! Can you push my cart so I can wrangle my toddler and get this GIANT box to check out? Please! Please! Somebody pleeeeeeeese help me! Anybody!”

But no. Nobody helped me. Nobody even cared that Baby Bug surfed on top of a 200-pound box on top of a wheely cart. We were fine-and-dandy just helping ourselves because we are fancy-free and independent like that. Plfffff. I actually made three trips in and out of IKEA, checking the size the 200-pound box and the size of my 200-pound car to make sure that one could fit inside the other. I wasn’t sure.

I wheeled that thing through self check-out, wrangled Baby Bug before she teeter-tottered off the end of the 200-pound box and wheeled it right out the door with my receipt without speaking to a single soul. It was so un-American. But hey, it only cost $79. I guess I got what I paid for.

And that is what I am thinking about instead of packing my suitcases. I am not putting the bookcase together no matter how badly I want to. I’m leaving it for my Dad who will be staying in our house for a day while we are gone. My mom is house-sitting and my Dad will be home from the road for one night. Of course he wants to spend it putting together a bookshelf! That’s what Dads are for.