Shelly’s Journal

We haven’t been to our local library in about 3 months. I know this because our books were due - and I had renewed them twice (we check out for a month at a time.) It’s always a little chaotic with the two of them, but now my little Zach has wheels - feet a moving.

Our library is a good sized building with lots of open spaces - which is nice. We typically go in the afternoon when there are sometimes more adults there, but usually less kids. I started this day by popping Zach into the stroller and heading strait back to the stacks 646.2044 - looking for books on sewing machines and sergers. I had checked online and knew there were at least 2 titles I’d like to check out. I ended up with 4. Then we rolled over to the kids section.

We always start with videos and then work our way over to the train table, blocks and other toys. I scan the books while Bump plays. Zach usually is confined to the stroller for the entire time. As soon as we hit the videos, he wanted out. I scooped him out and he headed strait out the way we came. I glanced through the DVDs, pulled out a few and then ran and grabbed him and brought him back. Bump was checking out the vast collection of VHS and talking up a storm - and laughing every time Zach took off. I finally got what I needed, zoomed over to the Frankline VHS tapes, grabbed a couple (chased Zach) and came back through the non-fiction stacks to Bump who was now in the stroller admiring the DVDs I picked out.

I did this a few times with Zach, grabbing some books off the shelf as we came back through. I tried to look for more, but the little guy was just too determined to make a break for it.

We took a pit stop in the nature viewing area where there is a large window overlooking a small clearing. There used to be a birdfeeder there, but now it’s a birdhouse. A few squirrels and birds hung out there. I don’t think the boys even noticed. They loved jumping on the chairs in that area. Yeah, bad idea. Let’s move onto the area with the toys.

I really thought Zack would be keen to playing with all of the trains and things. But alas, he found more pleasure in having me chase him through these low stacks - which were slanted at an angle from some other stacks that gave him a bee line to the aisle that led out of the children’s area. How he knew the way, I don’t know. So I quickly gathered up a few fiction books by authors we know and packed Zack back in the stroller for checkout.

I must have seemed like a highly disorganized person as I pulled umpteen books, videos and even software from below my stroller - searching for my library card which was stuck in the pocket of one of the book bags. Bump had a conversation with the library lady on Franklin and how we had gotten the soccer one again. He plays soccer and just got a new ball. What else he said, I don’t know because my head was ready to explode. Zach was trying to climb out of the stroller, and I had to actually buckle him in before he took a nose dive. Then, he started crying because he hates the seatbelt.

Yes folks, they were very happy to see us roll out the door. So was I.