dear IKEA,

thanks for letting us use you as a cheap indoor playground;

thanks for getting new toys every now and then to mix up our fun;

thanks for your plentiful, clean bathrooms;

thanks for your fluffy sheepskin rugs (although we do request the cowhides return);

thanks for your display of scented candles;

thanks for letting preschoolers man the hand-held scanner in the self-check lane.

The kids are getting hip to your ways, though, you big blue store. They've figured out that the children's section is really a store with stuff they can ask for and that there's that little alcove in the cafe that shows television all day long. On Wednesday it was Charlotte's Web.

(Appropriate since we'd spent the morning playing at a bug-themed playdate at Noah's house, where Peter and Lucy scammed all the dry cereal they could and Thomas's face lit up with delight when he saw another baby just his size!)