Long Island Ikea - Barely a Swedish Staycation

Perspective. Savannah explored the Ikea warehouse.

It's been my mission to buy Savvy a table for arts & crafts, puzzle play, and dining in miniature so I've been scouring Pinterest and blogs for weeks. There are a million options but my extreme cheapness kept me from biting the bullet on a cute table from Land of Nod when I knew there were tables at Ikea near our family on Long Island. Since Ikea doesn't offer online shopping, we waited until a trip to visit family before checking out kid stuff at the Hicksville store.

Land of Nod Activity Table - LOVE it but it's $449 and big. Maybe our next apartment.

During the visit, my father-in-law, who works in the furniture business, offered to buy Savannah a custom designed table from a school supplier that he knows of, but I was too impatient to wait even longer, and since we were just a few minutes away from the Hicksville Ikea, we bought an interim option that we can eventually repurpose when we get a better table.

We compared dimensions and decided to get one of their ridiculously cheap coffee/side tables in red along with white kid-size chairs.

This Lack table cost only $12.99

And so we could check Sweden off our Staycation list, we made sure to load up on Swedish treats at the Ikea cafe after picking up some toys for Savannah. We shared a plate of meatballs and sampled the "Ikea Food" juices.

Elderflower drink. YUM.

Lingonberry drink. I sip skeptically. Tastes like cranberry juice.

The best tasting meatballs are the hardest to reach.

Denmark in Central Park

We've been fairly lazy on the "international staycation adventure seeking" front this winter, but I did have an experiential inspiration from a friend's Christmas gift to Savvy.

My wanderlusty girlfriend Melinda went to Scandinavia during the summer of 2011 and gifted Savannah an amazing collection of Has Christian Andersen fairy tales purchased at his home in Denmark. Savvy is still too young to pay attention to his lengthy stories, but we've looked through the pictures numerous times and I've thought a lot about which were my favorite stories as a child.

"The Red Shoes", a film based on Andersen's fairy tale, was one of my favorite movies to watch as a young child. I used to borrow the VHS from the library all the time just so I could watch the ballerina dance in her red slippers. I was so young at the time, I don't think I cared much for the plot (I recall it being a frightening story and would only look at the screen during the ballerina dancing scenes) but my love of red shoes was born and lingers to this day. I always have a pair in rotation and passed along my style belief that red shoes go with everything to Savannah. She loves her red Mooshu Trainers and picks them out of her shoe pile often.

Sorry for the annoying gif from the film. This is an homage to my husband who is gif-crazy these days. Image via.

Earlier this month on a rare 55 degree day, Savvy and I took a long stroll through Central Park to visit the Hans Christian Andersen statue. She wore her red shoes and looked adorable so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to take a photo with this blog post in mind to fulfill our arbitrary Denmark requirement.

After waiting for a few other children to pose for their pictures, it was Savvy's turn. She was not at all interested in standing near the gigantic statue by herself. This is about as close as she was willing to get on her own:

I didn't want to torture her, but I did want a shot so I snapped one pic:

I guess the statue is a wee bit scary. We'll have to visit again this summer for story time. The Hans Christian Andersen Story Telling Center hosts stories at the statue each Saturday at 11am from June-September, which will certainly make the visit a lot more fun.

Here are some more photos from our springlike winter walk through the park:

No ice this year!

Savvy quacked at the ducks. Click here for video of her remarkable quacking abilities ;)

The sun was low in the sky. Savvy chased and yelled at her shadow, getting lots of laughs from tourists.

Lucky for me, she took a break from talking to strangers to give her mama a smile:

Visiting the Alice in Wonderland statue, however, was a more tolerable experience :)

I'd choose Wonderland over Denmark too, kiddo.