Keep Thou My Feet

Before I had Kevin I had many ideas about what good moms are like. I'll spare you the full list. One of the things that good moms do, I was certain, was take their children to the library once a week. The image I had in my head was of sitting in the children's section, with my child snuggling blissfully in my lap, reading a book together. We would likely spend half an hour on the same six-page board book, because there would be frequent pauses to answer all of my brilliant little one's questions and adorable comments, and I would also ask many questions that would help his brain develop so he would be incredibly intelligent. You know, things like, "Kevin, this is an alligator. What letter does alligator start with? What color is the alligator? Look at the alligator's sharp teeth . . . What do you think alligators like to eat?" Blah blah blah.

So when I recently decided to start taking Kevin to the library because I was getting tired of reading the same old books over and over again, I knew perfectly well what to expect, but subconsciously I guess I was still envisioning the scene I just described. I should have known better. Maybe he's just not old enough, or maybe it's just his personality, but every trip to the library ends up involving me chasing him up and down the aisles trying to prevent him from throwing the contents of all the shelves in the adult section on the floor. And if he does calm down, it's because he's climbed up onto a stool and is playing with one of the computers, which drives me crazy because we didn't come to play with computers, we came to check out some books. And he has absolutely no interest in sitting and reading books, or even choosing books for that matter. If I choose some books for him he always seems to hate them at home, which is odd since he loves reading his own books. And then when I decide it's time to check out and go home, there's inevitably a tantrum, which is incredibly embarrassing in a library.

So I've decided that library trips are going to just be for me for a while. I'll go and check out the books that I want, and for Kevin we'll stick with the books he already has, since those are the only ones he wants to read anyway. And guess what? It doesn't mean I have failed.