Sir Monkeypants bravely took the Captain and Gal Smiley on a camping trip this morning. It’s raining here, so I hope they aren’t getting too wet, and are having a good time making marshmallows. Sir Monkeypants hasn’t had too much luck camping in the past, and this is Gal Smiley’s first time ever sleeping outside, so I have my fingers crossed for them.

Meanwhile, the Wee One and I are having a lot of quiet time here at the house. This afternoon I decided to take her on a little outing, just to get out of the house and to have something to do. Besides, Sir Monkeypants went to a lot of effort to install her car seat in the Subaru, so I could go out if I wanted, and who am I to let all that hard work go to waste?

So I had a look at my to-do list, and one of the things on it is to get the new IKEA catalog, because I love thumbing through it, and 99% of the furniture in our house is from IKEA so we can practically think of the catalog as a full-colour magazine spread of our place. Look! Page 108 is exactly like our office, only with that really nice throw rug, so clearly, we get that rug!

The catalog came out yesterday, and it tends to go quick, so I thought, hey, why not pop over to the IKEA and pick up a copy? Because what could be more fun than the IKEA, on a Saturday afternoon, the day after the new catalog items have arrived, when it’s 33 degrees out? I’ll tell ya what’s more fun — all that, and with a six-week-old baby in tow! We’re talking party time!

I should have suspected trouble when we drove up to the big blue box, only to find several security officers policing the outside, and a small army of guys in orange vests who were directing people to parking places. I almost had a little fender bender when I misread the frantic waving of one cranky orange-vest-dude’s walkie-talkie. Me? Or him in the Jeep? Me? Him? Oh, me? Okay, don’t get fussy…somebody needs a Big Gulp.

As soon as I parked the car, the Wee One started wailing, because she hates her car seat and she hates the car and only forward motion at 80 km/h or higher will keep her calm while facing the injustice of a seat belt. And I thought, we’ll just pop in! What could be easier! So I loaded her into her stroller and we dashed inside, and after a frantic 10-minute search, I saw the pile of catalogs on the other side of a massive crowd of aggressive parents trying to get their kids into the ball room. So I shoved my way to the front, with my stroller — I’m sure I was the subject of many a whispered expletive — and grabbed a catalog. Then, it was a sprint back to the car to avoid the impending rainstorm. Baby in car, stroller in trunk, hard-won catalog in the front seat…then 15 minutes of fighting traffic to get out of the lot.

Then, a few street lights into the drive home, I finally glanced down at the catalog…and I had grabbed the French version.

And I grappled with myself for many minutes…couldn’t I decipher the French? Maybe with the help of Google? Wasn’t it really about the pretty pictures? Who cares that I can’t read the flowery J. Peterson-esque descriptions of each room and item?

Sigh. I cared.

So, it was back to the IKEA…back to the walkie-talkie waving, Big Gulp-needing orange vest guy, back to getting the Wee One into her stroller, back to fighting my way through a crowd of arguing parents. And finally I had an English version in my hands.

Then we spent another 15-minutes getting out of the parking lot, came home, and both collapsed into bed for a nap. Quite the outing! I think tomorrow we will just stay home.