Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Home Improvement Fun!

I love home projects. Mostly because it always involves lots of swearing. And when the kids are around? Inventive but lame swearing. It's hard to look at your husband seriously when he's yelling about constipated bunnies. Trust me on that.
This round of home improvement started because of my insane need to plan things out months, nay years!, ok only months, in advance. This summer, Girl X (geez that makes her sound like a superhero. Girl X! Able to ignore adult voices for days! She can leap the mounds of toys in the middle of her floor! Envied for her ability to evade small children who want to pull her hair! Right. Anyway.....) will be moving to what is currently the guest room. I still have to convince Mr X that that room needs to be repainted. It's a dark green. The paint sample had looked so much lighter. And then he painted the closet doors when I wasn't looking. The CLOSET DOORS!! Plus, she likes blue. And the new bed set we just bought her is blue. I'll work on it.
Hurricane is going to be moving into his sister's current room. Her current room is covered in butterflies. And clouds. And it's girly.
Mr X was set on getting a car bed for him. Until I explained that then we'd be forced to buy him another bed in a few years because chicks won't date a guy with a car bed (thanks A. for that tip!). Incidentally, this is the same reason I gave him for throwing away his 'Boobies of the World' shirt last night. Gaw! I am a horrible wife. Throwing away a poor man's booby shirt. They were cartoon boobies. And there were a lot of them. He ranted for an hour about all the different kinds of boobies there were and how now he wouldn't be able to walk up to a barista and say "Hey! You have coat hook boobies!" because he would no longer be sure that they were in fact coat hook boobies. They could be praying boobies but he could no longer refer back to his booby shirt and now the poor barista would never know what kind of boobies she had. I asked him if he got hit a lot before he met me. He said "Yes. How'd you know?" And then he continued ranting about the booby shirt but I left the room so who knows where he went with that. All I know is that the booby shirt is in the trash can sitting on our curb, stapled to some ugly chair fabric and buried under coffee grounds lest he pull a Girl X and go dig it out. Goodbye Booby shirt.
What was I saying before I went off on a tangent? I have to stop doing that.
Right. So, we spent the evening looking at bedding and settled on some denim Green Bay Packers bedding (I vetoed the shiny stuff- ew- but had to give in somewhere) and we're looking for another set to switch back and forth with. His only demand (ha!) is that it have something to do with sports. Because this family is all about the sports! I have not one athletic bone in my body. I traded them all for cake. Because I'm all about the cake. I got rid of his booby shirt so I think this is the least I can do for him (isn't it funny how we're always looking for the least thing we can do for someone? Have you ever heard someone say that it was the most they could for someone who saved their life or gave up a truly awful shirt?). Still working on the second set of bedding. I found a few I liked, but I can't justify spending $350-$400 (or the $1,250 the one place wanted) on kids' bedding. Search is still on.
But the bed! We found a truly awesome bunkbed with a desk built into it. We both loved it. We talked over it for 30 minutes. 'Look at the shelves!', 'but he won't need 2 beds.', 'Gah! It's beautiful!', 'Do you think it would be too big for his room?', 'Can we get that bed for us to use?' and then we noticed the price. If I'm not willing to spend $400 on bedding, there is no way in hell I'm spending that unspeakable amount on a bed! Bye bye beautiful bed.
"We could go to Ikea." I love Ikea. They have furniture with funny names like Fartful. I want a Fartful. I don't know what it is, but anything named Fartful would fit in so well here. Mr X is less feeling the love for Ikea, even though he too likes Fartful ('honey, I'm feeling fartful today. Pull my finger!' We should grow up sometime.). He's just less than happy about the long drive and the long lines and the maze and the fact that going there gives me crazy ideas like the monstrosity of a toyshelf we bought Girl X and on which she broke her face.
But there are ways to get what you want. The easiest, as he really wanted to go to bed, was put my always icy hands under his shirt and ask sweetly.
He shrieked a little like a girl but said Ikea was a grand idea! Grand!!
I am a horrible wife. First the booby shirt and now the cold cold hands of the lover of all things Ikea and shopping.
I get to go to Ikea. And I get to paint. And I get to learn all kinds of new inventive swear words. Hopefully something better than constipated bunnies. Like Armadillos. That could be funnier.