Shopping for Lamps and Mirrors with Small Children

I ♥ Home Goods - big, fat capital "H" ♥ it. I actually hadn't been there in awhile and was going through withdrawl, and Dave, of all people, found a reason for a visit to the sacred home decorating store. Our living room has no ceiling lights, so we rely solely on lamps for lighting. One problem, we have no lamps. We used to have lamps in the living room, but we moved them to different areas of the home and never replaced them. Four kids, a dog, a cat, and lots of balls, Nerf guns, and general wrestling around do not bode well for lamps and breakable things, so that played a part in why we held off on that purchase, I suppose. But there comes a time when you can't rely any longer on the dim lighting from other rooms, and you have to say "Enough!". Practically no light at all can make for awkward situations: "I can't see! Who is sitting on the couch? Your grandma? Or your grandpa?" We needed lamps, so off to Home Goods I went.

I waited until I was down to two kids; Greta was at school, and Charlie had been dropped off at 4K for the day. I had the pleasure of searching for the perfect lamps with a three-year-old and a one-year-old. Louisa sat in the cart, of course, but Frankie walked beside me and is especially attracted to shiny "beautiful" things, like all of the lamps in the brightly lit lighting section at Home Goods. It took all of my concentration to steer the cart clear of the racks, keep Louisa's hands far enough away from anything breakable, and convince Frankie not to touch anything. We went carefully up and down each aisle of the lighting department three times before I spotted them: a set of gorgeous aqua and green glass lamps with soft beige shades. This was it! I jammed them into the cart {those Home Goods carts are not all that big, you know}, and gave Frankie a spirited high five. And then I maneuvered us past the rugs and the lovely chairs and throw pillows to our final destination: the mirror section. Home Goods has a huge selection of mirrors. Frankie loves mirrors. It couldn't be that bad, right? I won't keep you in suspense; nothing crashed. I was just that mom who said, "Don't touch!" 437 times before picking up a set of small, round mirrors. Two ladies in the mirror section  tried to snatch the lamps right out of my cart complimented me on the lamps I had found. I knew we had made it to Home Goods just in time; if I hadn't spotted those lamps when I did, they would have been goners.

We loaded our prizes into the van with time to spare before we had to pick Greta up from school. Obviously, that meant we could stop at Target. I was forming a plan, and I thought Target might have the last piece of the puzzle: a final set of mirrors that I hadn't found at Home Goods. Into Target we went, and into the familiar red cart went Lou Lou. We made a dash for the mirror aisle where I spotted two mirrors that just might work. "Great work again, Frankie!" Another high five. We left Target and made it to Greta's school right on time.

Back at home, I laid out the day's purchases and gave myself a pat on the back. Two lamps and four mirrors with a three-year-old and a one-year-old - not bad!

When it all came together, was it a success for our living room? Partly. More to come.