weekend of the glider
Mar 6, 2005 The Story of My Life
The other day I came home from the thrift store with a child-sized glider — the kind they sell at baby stores — for Noah. We have a large-size one with which we could not have survived Madison’s first months and this little one was well-made and cute so heck, I bought it. The price was right anyway. (This is similar but ours cost $19.19 and has uglier cushions.)
We got it home and Noah was very pleased. He sat himself right down with a book and then Madison came behind him and pulled the chair so he almost tipped over and much yelling ensued but still, it was a good buy.
Now our glider — the adult-sized glider — bites. It’s just awful. We bought the floor model, which was marked down, but it was also fairly inexpensive to begin with. Take a cheap chair, let people use it as a floor model for a year and then bring it home. What happens? Insane squeaking and the seat breaks out. We’ve been using it anyway because heck, it cost us fifty bucks and it’s the only one we had and Madison would rather rock to sleep than not. But my back was killing me since with the bottom breaking out, your tush hangs there a little lower than intended and that’s a strain on a person’s back.
Noah spent the afternoon with his little measuring device from his spy tools belt affirming that our glider was not as well-made as his. He kept finding places where the wood was actually thinner and he pretended to be sympathetic but really he was thrilled to have the best seat in the house.
On Friday Madison, Noah and I went thrifting again (I got the bug) and we found a Little Tikes playhouse for twenty bucks. I wanted to buy it but didn’t have the van and wasn’t totally sure. See, I always wanted to buy a playhouse for Noah but Brett suffers from plastic-phobia. He was terrified about having big hunks of colorful plastic in the yard, feeling that they are unsightly. It took a tantrum on my part to get him to buy one of those elephant slides (I can’t find a picture but it’s one of those squat blue slides that look like an elephant from the side) for $7 at a Catholic school carnival five years ago. Sure, he didn’t want our yard cluttered with big plastic toys but who was supposed to find entertaining ways to keep the boy out enjoying the fresh air? That’s right, me. So the way I figured it is that my childcare needs trumped his aesthetic needs and after twenty minutes of haranguing and thirty minutes of pouting (pouting while 3-year old Noah took a pony ride, ate a cookie and lost a dart game), he agreed with me. That’s how we got the slide but a Little Tikes playhouse? No dice. Brett kept promising to build an attractive one out of wood but Noah is now eight and still there is no playhouse. I am not making the same mistake with poor little Madison so I’ve decided we’re buying one, dammit. Besides, we already have a solar clothes dryer — will a plastic playhouse really bring down our curb value that much more? I think not.
When I saw the one at the thrift store, I wanted it right off. It was missing the door (and the door is a big deal — toddlers and preschoolers like to slam other people out of places) but I figured I could probably call Little Tikes and get a new one. And it was smaller than I wanted because even though Noah is too big to really play in them, I want one big enough that he can still crawl in there because you know he’ll want to. Besides, was I really going to spend $200 more just to get a door and a bit more floorspace? Problem was the thrift store wouldn’t store anything for more than three hours and Brett was at work for another five. I wanted Brett to go back that night and get it but he said surely it could wait. It couldn’t of course and the house was gone by the time he went back yesterday morning.
The good thing, however, was that he found a glider there. A big person glider with really ugly 1980s cushions. But very very comfortable and nice wood and only $40. He came back and told me about it then hurried off with cash to buy it. Noah got his little measuring device back out and confirmed that it is indeed a nice chair. (I can’t find a picture of it but that’s because — if the abstract aqua and beige cushions are any indication — it’s from the 80s.)
So we gained a chair but lost a little playhouse. Brett is now voting that we just go to Toys-R-Us and buy a new one but that offends my sensibilities. I’m sure there’s one out there — faded and forgotten in someone else’s backyard. I’m keeping my eyes peeled.
Now playing on iTunes: “All I Left Behind” from the album Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions by Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris
March 6th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
Someone just gave a backyard playhouse away on my local freecycle. Maybe you could find one at yours.
I’m weird about the plastic too. It’s a combination of concern about the chemicals in plastic (those play houses are so much plastic) and asthetics. But my kids have 1,567 plastic toys and our back yard has a solar dryer too- and weeds, a huge pile of sticks and is covered in wild looking green stuff that I’m pretty sure isn’t grass. To complete the look, on a fairly regular basis, it’s strewn with garbage (we have such bad dogs). Obviously, a brightly colored plastic playhouse could only improve the look of our back yard. So I finally went to check one out for my second child, and was blown away by the price! I’m going to keep an eye on freecycle in case someone gives away another.
March 6th, 2005 at 5:56 pm
I’m sitting in my glider as I write this! it came in handy when the girls were born, but I use it more now than I did then, it’s the perfect place to use the laptop in, with my feet propped up on the matching footstool….. I really love my glider.
and I agree about the playhouse– aesthetics aside, I plan on loading us up with some of that stuff once we actually have a back-yard!
March 6th, 2005 at 7:44 pm
Aren’t the TRU stores in your part of the country all closing? Ours all closed except for the big one in Times Square because TRU couldn’t hold market share against Target and Walmart. TRU was having massive sales right before they closed. If yours isn’t closed yet you might find some markdowns. I’m still kind of mad I didn’t buy the child-sized drum kit.
March 6th, 2005 at 9:51 pm
I envy your thrifting skills, Dawn! I always seem to end up with useless crap when I go to second-hand stores and yard sales.
March 7th, 2005 at 12:25 am
I don’t have the book (everything’s stored for the moment) so I can’t do this verbatim, but there’s an excellent story by LIW where she recounts getting her stone fireplace … Almanzo didn’t want to carry all that stone and he thought it would just be a huge pain to build. She reasoned with and cajoled him but he wasn’t buying it. “Finally, I wept,” she said. She got her fireplace. It was the only time in her marriage she cried to get her way.
Your pouting and tantruming reminded me of this, and I thought you might appreciate it.
March 7th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
The plastic playhouse dilema…
As a mother of 4, who had a plastic playhouse for 2 years, and it was NEVER used by anything except spiders.
The pop up tent that could be used inside and outside was a great hit! Stores easy and can darken with a blanket.
Just a thought…
March 7th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
I was planning on the tent myself. I think they have one at Ikea for $7. If you want one let me know, we are probably going to go in March or April.
Our babysitter has a bunch of pop-up cubes that M LOVES. The real benefit of the fabric cubes is that they can be used in the house or outside and fold up really small for storage. It is not quite the same as a house though.