Story time at the Library

This morning, I decided that it was time for a little outing since I could feel the house closing in on me yesterday. Could a mom do anything more wonderful for her children on a Tuesday morning than take them to the library for story time? It sounded like a great idea.

True to character, we arrived just a smidge late (2 minutes) for the preschool story time. All heads turned to watch me struggle to reach over the double decker stroller to grab the door and clumsily steer my way in, banging on the door frame, using my elbow to hold the door open enough, asking Owen over and over to move forward so that I did not run over his toes. Eventually, we got situated. While the librarian continued her routine of songs and stories, we continued to draw attention because every 30 seconds or so, one of the babies would squawk loudly and smile. Cute? Yes. Embarrassing? Yes. The theme of the day was Father's Day which included a book called "My Dad" and the song D-A-D-D-Y sung to the tune of Bingo. It was a nice presentation, and we will attend more story times, however we need to work on our blending-in-with-the-crowd skills.

Now, Central Library happens to have a very inviting area filled with toys, and I am greatly mistakin' if I think I can get away with leaving before we spend some quality time playing underneath the artificial oak tree. I should have known. But, hey, the babies weren't hungry, wet, or needing to sleep right then, so why not. This is where I stretched my luck. See, the sweet, well-meaning librarian informed me that my twins were adorable (thank you) and the perfect age for the baby story time program that was going to begin in five minutes. I knew I was tempting fate, but I've been feeling like I need to step up my game with them. I feel like I don't do as much educational play with them as I did when Owen was a baby. It probably boils down to having three kids clamoring for attention and a household of five messy people to tend. Nevertheless, they don't get the nightly book reading time, sing-song eye-to-eye play time as often. So, yes, when the librarian invited us, I would have felt extremely guilty if I just left and neglected to afford Blake and Sadie the same opportunities as their older brother.

I would show you a picture, but I did not bring my camera with me nor would I have had the extra appendages needed to point and shoot, so picture this: around 15 mommies with their hair and make up fixed sitting in a circle with their baby on their lap, playing Where is Thumbkin and Open Them, Shut Them. Meanwhile, I am struggling to keep Blake on my lap, doing one handed motions because my other hand is holding the back of Sadie's dress as she tries to crawl away, looking like she's on a crawling treadmill. Then I drag her to my knee, enlist the help of Owen to sing to Blake, try to keep squirmy wormy entertained while she screams to go explore, and sit and watch helplessly as Owen picks up Blake by the underarms and heaves him out of the center of the circle to which he has escaped. Horrified/empathetic faces from the lovely mommies with one baby nicely on lap.

I keep switching babies for quite sometime to the point that I can feel myself literally break into a sweat. Owen continues to sing in a silly voice, replacing the occasional lyric with the word tooty - not exactly charming. Blake crawls over to Sweet Librarian who picks him up during Ring Around the Rosy and soon after sits him back on the floor. I'm not above accepting help from total strangers in this situation, so I was actually kind of bummed that she put him down after only one song. When he crawls back, I realize that he has crusty gunk all over one side of his face, so she was probably a little grossed out and decided to be hands-off with the groady baby. Apparently I didn't wipe faces thoroughly enough after breakfast because, remember, we were running just a little late. I let Sadie Jane crawl over to eat one of the lovely mommy's flip flops so that I could dig for a wipe and clean up my dear Blaker.

My personal fiasco finally comes to an end when the song part is over and they dump a mound of baby toys into the middle of the circle. 15 babies crawl to the middle and commence playing. This was interesting to me. A study of natural tendencies. Several times, Blake crawled to a toy, then batted and scooted it to the outskirts of the play area while he experimented with it on his own. Sadie went from one lovely mommy and baby to another, greeted them with the squawk and smile she practiced during Owen's story time, swiped the toy from the other baby's little fists, waved it around, sat it down, and moved on. She just had to be involved in whatever anyone else was doing. My babies have their own personalities and have from the start. I enjoyed watching as Blake sought out some alone time and Sadie charmed the masses with her social performance.

In the middle of all this I realize that someone needs a diaper change. Now, if you come to an event like this with one baby, it's no sweat. Excuse yourself, find a bathroom, do a quick change-a-roo, and return. For me, this would have meant buckling both babies into the stroller, asking people to move out of my stroller's way, and getting that darn thing out of the heavy door with Owen in tow. At that point I would just leave. But after having survived the chaos that was structured story time with crawling twins, I was still regaining my senses and really, really didn't want to leave without giving them a chance to play freely. So, I let my stinky baby play for quite a while until enough people were gone that I could manage to get my stroller to the door without disturbing anyone.

We checked out our books, buckled everyone into the van, and babies fell asleep before we hit the first traffic light. Lesson learned: Do not underestimate the effort a mother will exert in order to let her children attend story time at the library. The library was exhausting, but well worth it. I did turn on some Yo Gabba Gabba (then Little Bill) to entertain Owen while I snoozed on the couch after lunch. I don't know how the "no t.v." moms do it.