Mackenzie is sort of like a little mini baby (sniff) toddler sized King Kong. She has that teetering stance and those big claw hands just waiting to snatch up a piece of carefully placed runway, lineup of fighter jets, Little People or the latest- Playmobil piece. Case in point?
Exhibit A:

I love that I magically caught this on film

Subsequently Nathan’s play area has been our kitchen table. We’ve had an entire airport terminal set up on our kitchen table for a few weeks (in addition to my sewing machine, other craft stuff and general piles of crap) and finally I’d HAD IT. The airport was relocated upstairs where there is no good place to set it up.

I’ve been looking for some type of play table for Nathan which is sort of part of a bigger problem in that he needs a different room set up, or some ‘bonk beds’ or a playroom, or maybe if we just weren’t smashed into 1100 sq feet of government luxury but, you’ve all heard that story before. Anyway- I read that FedEx now does this SmartShip thing where they will ship to APOs? Suspicious but willing to try it out I thought I’d peruse some furniture. Something playtable like. Target had nothing. Pottery Barn had one I was sort of ‘meh’ about and Land of Nod had one on sale- but we’re all out of the taller sized legs. So, I conversed with Santa and we decided on this one. I clicked the “purchase” button, closed one eye and hoped. Fully expecting to get some big red error message saying “this item cannot be shipped to an APO.” Instead I saw the “total” and thought ’surely there must be a mistake.’ No, no mistake, the shipping was $175. Almost as much as the table itself. PC said I should call and ask about it, and I asked him “so if it is right- its really $175- then what?”

“Ugh…then we’re not buying it. I mean- don’t you think $175 is a lot to spend on shipping? You’re the one who always complains about how much it costs to ship things.”

This is where it gets good. “Yes, I do think that that is a ton of money to spend on shipping but….[big sigh] I’ve tried to find something over here and there is no furniture over here and no one will ship things over here and Im frustrated with living over here and not being able to get anything and we were only supposed to be here for 3 years and now our kids need some furniture in their rooms because they are older and I can’t buy anything here and the furniture store on base has nothing and I don’t want to buy cheap cardboard furniture and we get COLA I mean isn’t this what COLA is for? and Im tired of Nathan playing on the kitchen table and he needs to have some place to play……” And before I could even finish my speech PC tells me “you know, why don’t you just go ahead and get it.” I love that man. He is so good to me and must have decided this wasn’t a battle worth fighting. Can we cue some Christmas music?- Santa’s sleigh better deliver this bad boy before Christmas.

*The kicker in all of this– I didn’t even get to try out FedEx SmartShip. Dang.

*Also- I know my mom will have something to say about this (“you spent how much?”) And to that I say mom, I needed this. I need this for my mental health because Im going a little nutty and we’re tired of eating dinner at the coffee table because the kitchen table is filled with so much CRAP. Ok, we don’t really eat at the coffee table but just consider it a SPLURGE.

Filed under: The Captain