This week kicks off Library Lovers’ Month, and if you know me and my family at all, you know that one thing we love to do is read together. We read before nap time, when one of the 3-year-old twins will pick out two picture books and I’ll read a few chapters from the middle grade novel we’re wading through (current pick is Echo, by Pam Munoz Ryan). We read audio books while doing chores, when we don’t feel like listening to the kids complain about our ‘90s Pandora station and how it is “really hurting our ears because this is the worst music ever. Seriously. Minecraft music is much better.”
We read during bath time and laugh about Shel Silverstein’s bizarre poetry. We read before bed.
This kids and I head out to the library at least once a week, because libraries are magical places for children. Some of my fondest memories as a kid were the ones where my mother set us loose in the local library and told us to pick out enough books to last us a week, and, of course, I’d pick more. I love libraries so much that, early on, I set one up in my own house. Boys share three to a bedroom, but we have a library, because we have our priorities straight.
With all those trips to the library come, inevitably, lost books.
There are so many things that never happened before I had kids. Overdrawing my account (I can’t even add correctly anymore). Leaving something important at a store (I’ll leave the box of diapers, but at least I have all my kids). Accruing a regular library fine.
I’m convinced we’re some of the biggest supporters of our local library, which is all well and good, except that when I pay for a book, I like to keep it. Instead, library books that are fortunate enough to come home with my kids fall into a giant black hole that is my boys’ bedroom.
Ha. Who am I kidding? The whole house is a black hole.
I’ve found library books in some pretty weird (or maybe just annoying) places. Like
In the car.
I know. That’s not so very hard to believe. We do, after all, drive to the library, and boy are always reading on the way back home, because once they get home they’ll find better things to do, like dump out all the LEGOs and come in and out the front door ten thousand times and decide they want wear the Spider-Man costume, no they want to wear Iron man, no they think they’d rather go as a SWAT team member with red silk gloves and a Robin Hood hat, and they forget all about reading the books or, more importantly, where they last saw them. My boys are the worst at leaving books in the car, which are sure to get trampled by a billion feet next time we load up, but, hey, at least they’ll have a book for the five-minute trip to the store. Win.
In the laundry hamper.
Maybe they were reading the book in the bathroom when they took their clothes off, and, because they were finished with it, they weren’t all that bothered when the book got caught in their sleeves, and then they didn’t notice the hard corners sticking out when they actually put their clothes in the hamper. It’s not all that far-fetched. I mean, the only thing they really pay attention to is the answer to “What time is dinner” or its twin, “What are we having for dinner?” But, hey, boys? A laundry hamper is most definitely not the place for books. I feel compelled to replace these Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire books for the simple fact that they smell like wet dog and rotten Fritos.
In the trash can.
This is most likely the work of the 3-year-old twins. They are, you see, some of the biggest instigators in my house. If a brother says he really likes the song playing through the speakers, the 3-year-old will sneak up to the iPhone and “accidentally” turn it off. If a brother says “Please stop copying me” a 3-year-old will do exactly the opposite for hours on end. If a brother says he really likes this book he’s reading and then he happens to leave that very book unattended for half a second, well, there it goes in a stainless steel container with last night’s chicken bones, somebody’s old toast covered in jam and their baby brother’s most recent fully loaded diaper.
In the refrigerator.
Book preservation? A book and a snack? Someone mistook bookshelf for fridge shelf? It’s anyone’s guess.
I know what you’re thinking. Hey, at least your kids love reading. (Or maybe you’re thinking, hey, you need to get a handle on your kids, in which case I’m not really interested in anything you have to say.) Exactly. At least they love reading.
I suppose if library fines are the price I have to pay for kids who will read to stave off boredom, then I’ll take it.
But if you can’t get your book back on the designated library shelf, I swear…
