Library Fun with No Tiny Tots

You know what I discovered on Thursday? It is really fun to go to the library only with big kids! (In our house, six and eight are "big.") I rarely take the children to the library because of how stressful it is to keep the straining, squalling two-year-old in his stroller, convince the four-year-old to stay right next to me, and be approving each book the older children bring me to check out. (There are plenty of books I don't vet and that we leave there.)

Checking out 31 books

But on Thursday, I had hired a mother's helper to give me some respite during another one of Chris' frequent business travels of late, so I luxuriously took only the two older kids to music lessons and then the library. We had such fun wandering around aisles, my knowing they were perfectly safe out of my sight, my flipping through their book requests at leisure.

This is the way to visit a library! I might have to issue a new family rule that a child must be five years old to join me at the library.










What to do with so many books?! When I don't control the books, the library books get spread about the house, including left in the wonderful bedside mess of Books the Kids Are Currently Reading.

Bedside reading

Accessible but somewhat hidden

I don't particularly like to lose library books, so I try to keep them in one spot. I used to keep them on a section of a bookshelf, but then we began checking out too many. Lately, I've been tucking them in a canvas bag or baskets in a somewhat hidden spot in the den.

Library books are mostly hidden

This mama made a reading faux pas tonight with my four-year-old. I checked out a read-aloud version of "Miss Nelson Is Missing," having fond memories of the story from my own childhood. My 6-year-old read it on the ride home and also thought it was very funny.

We were having a rough solo-Mama bedtime, the toddler having missed his nap, fallen asleep early, then woken with a night terror just when I was trying to get Margaret asleep. He was screaming confusedly and blindly, so I grabbed "Miss Nelson" and told Margaret how super funny it was. 'Just listen to this story on CD while you look at the pages.' And I ran out of her room.

By the time Joseph's night terror had finally ended, I went back to check on Margaret, thinking she'd be asleep, but she was bolt upright in bed, terror on her face, tears in her eyes, and the CD silent, her having paused it.

The poor child was just too young to see the 'obvious' humor, to see the writing on the wall that Mrs. Viola Swamp, scary witch, is really all the time Miss Nelson dressed in disguise. I snuggled Margaret, I explained repeatedly the joke, but she could not wrap her mind around why Miss Nelson would be so mean to her school children as to trick them. We talked at great length, trying to process the scary story, and Margaret suggested I take that book right back to the library.

Miss Margaret is not sleeping alone tonight and I fully expect her to be waking me up with nightmares!