On the Hunt

I am on the hunt for a lot of items that meet my specific criteria.

One item in particular that I have been searching for is the perfect kitchen for Little Narch.  

She loves that blasted little kitchen she has in Minnesota. (I do too *sniffle*)

Every day she reminds me that I have to share my kitchen with her until she gets one of her own.

I have been researching stores, checking the local Craigslist type listings all in search for play kitchen worthy of my daughters creativity!

Lots of kitchens are out there.

I'm not interested in ones that are so elaborate that it does all the playing for you. In addition, I want something that looks nice in my home - not an eye sore. As well as something that will last for the next *ahem* Bitsy Narch. (No, I am not.)

Basically no stickers and no crappy plastic.

Pretend kitchens in the US are costly so I was expecting a little investment, but I was not expecting it to be double. (Which is why I was searching used). Apparently pretending is only for the rich or expatriates willing to fork over their hard earned cash.

I got really tired of looking, falling in love with a used one and not getting a call back from the seller.

The day that we celebrated Little Narch's birthday together, we ended up test driving cars. Little Narch was a trooper per usual and charmed the sales guy out of most of his candy dish.

When we stopped at the mall for dinner, we passed by a store that we have passed time and time again.

Parents guilt was setting in as it IS her 3rd Birthday, and we haven't thrown a party or gotten a cake PLUS she was lugged around test driving cars all day. So we go in to check it out.

We see a few. One meets 'the standards' but has a ghastly number attached to it and the other is plastic, makes a crap ton of noise and has stickers ALL over it.

A salesman pulled out a magazine to show us a kitchen they had in stock but not on the floor, not as ghastly of a number was attached but it was still expensive.

Little Narch and I left the store, she explained to me that sometimes we get things and other times we don't.

Then there are the *other* times that The Mayor and First Lady are tricksters. 

This was the point she told us "This is the BEST birthday ever!"
We looked at each other and decided the kitchen was worth every penny

It took 3.5 hours to assemble. By the time we were finished... We couldn't send her to bed, so she stayed up until 11:30 baking cookies and cake and hasn't stopped playing with it since she woke up today.

She doesn't have a bed?!?!? but the girl can cook!

I was really attached to somethings that I left behind. Mostly because of the memories they reminded me of... The little red kitchen included...

Watching Joelle grow and play in her new environment reminds me that memories are being creating. .... its nice living in the present :)