Pressing Forward

Trying so desperately not to make this a downer post because it isn’t how I really feel and there’s no reason to be “down.” I’ll write this post as if I was in a teacher-parent conference….positive, negative, positive.

Rea and I (Rileigh too) had our first date at the REAL public library. When she thinks of library, she thinks of the library at school, so she wasn’t sure where we were going. Overall, it went well, everyone enjoyed themselves, and we’ll return…not just the books. haha. Surprise, surprise…I had an unrealistic expectation which I quickly corrected in the first 5 minutes. I, yes, the children’s literature lover and wanna-be librarian, was overwhelmed. Once we walked through the doors, I laughed at myself because I had no idea where to start. I thought we could sit on the floor together, browse book covers, and make a pile of titles we would like to take home. Ha! (This really is funny to me in retrospect.) I proceeded with that plan. Rea was into her new surroundings and books galore….love that about her. I found a group of books written by Laura Numeroff because we have being reading a collection by her at home. Rea made the connection right away and was super excited…which meant I had to shush her again. Anyway, she basically wanted to go from shelf to shelf pulling out random books which the wanna-be librarian in me had to file every single one back…while doing so, I found several that were misfiled and I really wanted to re-file them, BUT then I remembered why I was there and went to find Rea. We played with the toys and read a few books in the little sitting area. We looked at a few more books then started to make our final selections. I proceeded to sort through the stack of 12-15 books we I had selected. She choose just one quality piece of literature she wanted to take home….Dora’s Backpack!!!! Seriously?!?!?!? We do all this…make it an outing…and she picks that. Yet again, I had to remind myself why we were there. I added it to the stack of books I had made the executive decision on. (Side Note: I think she ONLY wanted the Dora one because normally I don’t go into a store and instruct her to pick out 10 snacks, toys, prizes, etc., so I think she was thinking “I can only have one and this is the best one.”) I had to deal with a little administrative issue upon checkout…which I had been avoiding for ohhhh, say 3 years or so. Yes, yes it’s true. This wanna-be librarian had a serious debt at the public library. Eek! They volunteered to discount it 50%. Sold! Done deal! Paid that baby off so my baby could bring the amazing, one-of-a-kind Dora book home. Haha. The Dora book and a stupid Amelia Bedelia book are the two she won’t put down. Whatev! Good memory. A good beginning to many more visits.

In only a way my God can, the negative “things” that were on my heart are not so pressing anymore. I’m going to process a bit more, just don’t have the need to vent now….part of the venting was about not having the motivation to blog. I accomplished exactly what I wanted to when I sat down…document the first of many library trips.

(I’m going to leave the title and intro paragraph as is. It’s a good example of where I am right now.)