Adventures at the Public Library

I'm so sick of the pop-up farm book that we have; Drew is always asking to read it, and he has tantrums when I tell him no. I think it's time the boys discovered there are many, many good books in the world, and they don't all have to involve farm animals. So we took a little trip to the library today.

The public library here doesn't boast of much, but it does have a great kids' corner. It has a little puppet stage, some fun flannel board story scenes, and some blocks and things to play with. The kids get to be noisy to a certain extent, and just have a good time. Owen and Drew found some books and a little purple bench to sit on and read. That lasted for about 20 seconds, though, because Owen saw one of these and he really wanted to play with it. And luckily, no other kids were playing with it; it was all his! He hopped off the bench and hustled over to the toy. He hustled too fast, though, and tripped and fell. Adding to his misfortune, he was also quite close to the toy when he fell, and his forehead landed right on the corner of the box. The forehead bled. Owen screamed. People stared.

The librarian was so nice and helped us to a little room with a sink and a first aid kit. She even shooed some people off one of the rocking chairs and brought it to us so we could sit until Owen calmed down. I felt a little bad about that; any chair would have done. But it was nice of her, and nice of the pregnant lady who gave up the chair. The librarian got Owen all bandaged up while I held him, and then she gave him a sucker. That, of course, made it all better-- until the sucker fell on the ground and we had to throw it away.

Now Owen has a little gash (about 1/4 inch long, not too deep at all) on his forehead, artfully covered by a bright blue and yellow glow-in-the-dark Spongebob Squarepants (if only he knew who Spongebob is) bandaid. When we got home, Owen was running around being silly (I'm always amazed at how resilient kids are), and he stood in the corner of our hallway, which was dark because all the surrounding doors were closed. He laughed as though to say, "You'll never find me." Oh, but I did find him, quite easily; I could see that glowing little Spongebob on his forehead.