What is your love language?

For me and my two daughters, it's IKEA. All the things I bought to organize my closet and shoes and this summer's go-to bathing suit.

If I ever had any doubt about what the love language I speak with my two daughters is, I learned conclusively last weekend that it is — IKEA.

We found ourselves after a stretch of days together following the Beyonce concert trying to figure out what to do with our day last Sunday. We’d spent the day before on the beach under umbrellas for hours and reading and then heading home to grill a steak and eat on the back deck (see last week’s post for the full menu).

But we woke up on Sunday to yucky weather and were not quite sure how to spend our last day together before they both headed home and life went back to normal. We had thrown around the idea of going to IKEA a few days earlier when I said I wanted to find a better organization system in my home office, and both of their ears perked up. I’d also just bought some stick-on lights for my tiny bedroom closet and wanted to figure out a better way to store all the jeans and sweaters I had stuffed in a clear plastic (IKEA) tub taking up all the closet floor space.

The three of us got very excited about this problem-solving mission that would bring us back to our favorite place, until my older daughter said, “Mom, we just have your stupid clown car this weekend.”

I had forgotten their brother was taking the Honda CRV loaded with high school friends to State College for the weekend, leaving me and the girls with my tiny Mini Cooper.

“Ugh,” said the other daughter, “that dumb little car.”

It turns out, when you impulsively lease your dream car that is the antithesis to the last 30 years of your life — hauling all your children and all their shit plus probably the equivalent of a Costco case of empty plastic water bottles — there are repercussions. I did not exactly consider how the tiny two-door vehicle would impact the number of things I could purchase and haul home at any given time.

So the girls brooded for a while and I threw out some things we could do (ie: go shopping), but we didn’t really have a mission that didn’t require an SUV to solve. “You wanna just go walk around Target?” I asked, and they grabbed their purses and started walking out the door.

Earlier that weekend, my older daughter had told us how she had organized the bedroom closet in her new-ish apartment. How she had bought a bunch of plastic bins to store her jeans and sweaters and separate them by season so she can rotate accordingly.

When I moved to this beach rental last summer, I went from having a closet the size of a small bedroom with unlimited space plus my washer and dryer right there, to I think the smallest one I’ve ever had in my life (barring when I was a really little girl with nothing to really hang up). When I moved in I used a similarly-sized closet in the guest bedroom to house all of my outerwear, which is an extensive collection of coats and jackets. Like, I will never find myself in a weather situation for which I am not prepared.

But the one in my bedroom is a black hole of hanging items packet on a clothes rod, plastic tubs with lids, and all my sweaters tipping Tower-of-Pisa-style in piles on a shelf. In other words: a mess.

We entered Target and decided to forgo a cart because we didn’t really need anything. We were just there to look. We headed to the left, walking past their swim section and I noticed there was a style of a suit from their Kona Sol line I had not seen before and they had my size, so I started walking around with it.

Before long, we hit the home section, admired the new Casaluna bedding styles, and touched all the sheets and blankets on display as we passed by. My younger daughter had been telling us about TikToks she’d been seeing with hacks for bookcases that were on sale, so we wandered over to see what they had and noticed the Threshold cubbies nearby. “Mom, this could be great on the floor of your closet,” my older daughter said, and we were involved.

We ran back to the front of the store to grab a shopping cart and filled it with the giant cubby box and clear plastic bins. Only after I paid did I remember the tiny car that was waiting for us in the parking lot. We put down half the back seat and Tetris-ed everything inside and the girls stuffed me in the backseat holding plastic bins on my lap for the drive home.

Me, stuffed in the backseat of my clown car like a plastic bin.

By the end of the day, they had not only built the new cubbies (via the younger daughter) and folded all my jeans and sweaters to fit into handy plastic bins (older daughter), but they also installed more shelves inside existing IKEA bookcases to store all (summer) shoes (after two trips to Home Depot to have shelves sawed down to size).

Probably the most life-changing addition is the new motion-sensitive lighting that’s mounted in two spots in the closet so that now I can actually see what I own and maybe will stop buying white button-downs now that I know I already own four.

In between Target and Home Depot, the girls and I pulled into the big parking lot of a local pizza place that we always joke is popping at any time of day, all week long (Pete + Elda’s for the locals). And even though I remember taking them there many years ago when they were young, we haven’t been there since we moved close by, even though we always say we’re going to do it next time we all get together.

We got a table right before the lunch rush and ordered two thin-crust pies and I got a giant fountain soda Diet Pepsi. As we sat joking about things we all think are funny and planning out the rest of the afternoon, all the little tasks needed to bring the closet vision to life, I thought about how we were all in our element. We were right where we liked to be, with a problem to solve and a plan in place to get there. And it always looks the same — the younger girl putting something together with a screwdriver and the older one putting things away.

And me? Well, sometimes I’m just off doing something else — loading the dishwasher or wiping a counter — and waiting to hear my name get called for them to show off what they’ve done. To ooh and ahh about how handy and clever they are.

But mostly, I just feel the love that they put into the project. That, yes, my daughters love a good caper. It’s fun to transform a mess into something more orderly. But also, this is one way they show just how much they love me. And because we share that language of love, I can really feel it. I can look at plastic bins and jeans Marie Kondo’d within an inch of their lives, and know how much I am loved.

Our pies came and we agreed that they were pretty great. Super thin crusts with cheesy tops scattered with sausage, onions, and peppers on one and a vodka sauce and breaded chicken chunks on the other. “Damn,” my younger daughter said between bites, “I get why this place is always popping.”

I nodded my head and thought about how we were all in our happy place. With pizza and plans to take up the rest of the afternoon. My two girls showing me again and again, with particle board and intricate folding, how they love me. Saying it in the language we have come to know best.

Sunday shares: read + watch + cook + buy

In which I learn it is not easy trying to be a TikToker. In an effort to show you what my updated organizational systems look like, I took maybe 100 videos and found out I say “Um” and weird things like “nifty” a lot. But hopefully, you get the gist of what we did.

Here’s the motion lighting from Amazon (use for under cabinet lighting, too) and storage cubbies and plastic cubes from Target.

(Un)fortunately, the only way to get IKEA stuff is by going there or bribing someone to do it for you. Check out the Billy bookcase and doors and Google hacks on the internet.

My other current IKEA obsessions.

I think one of my girls saw this revolving frig shelf on TikTok and knew to go find it the last time we went to IKEA and it’s kinda great.

These little baby IKEA tongs totally did not need their own video, but I was on a roll. The two-pack is $4.99.

Finally, the bathing suit I own in three colors. I am heavily into the Target Kona Sol line and own a number of their button-down cover-ups and two of these ribbed one-piece numbers (and this new one) that are very flattering and hold all your parts in.