My Favorite Mess

 This has to be my favorite mess: new library books and boys, all strewn across the living room. 

Every week we head to the library and return our old books. The whole library staff knows my family has arrived, because they hear the boys climbing up on the book return counter, telling each other very loudly whose turn it is to put two books at a time down the Book Return hole. Then we head (loudly) to the children's section. (Which, by the way, has walls that do not reach the ceiling, so it is not sound-proof to the other half of the library. Huge oversight, architects!)

While the dudes fiercely rub all their fingers again and again across the broken computer screens to get the computer games to work, I choose all the new books as quickly as possible before my crawling baby learns about the joy of pulling books of the library shelves. (I have to make sure there are at least a few truck books for my two-year old. It's incredible how many books there are about trucks: dinosaurs constructing water parks, dogs building parks, trucks becoming super heroes, big rigs delivering things for dinosaur parks, dinosaurs turning into trucks, and even trucks destroying schools!) We scan them on the "magic" check-out tables and load the van.  We drive home in silence as the dudes are completely absorbed in their new books. 

As soon as the van is parked, they try to help me with the book bag, but it is just too heavy for a little person to haul, so they have to wait for me to lug it inside. As soon as it hits the floor, they pull out all its contents just as quickly and excitedly as they open presents on Christmas. They show each other all the neat covers and look through all the pictures. They cheer at long-time, repeated favorites, and yelp at long-awaited sequels. 

 

 I am always amazed at how well books can captivate my children. So often I find them, even the two who can't read yet, just sitting with a book, looking at its pictures. I love not having a television. I feel like their imaginations can go so much further when the images don't move on a screen for them. Their minds do more work when they look at a book.

Everyday, after the kids are asleep, I gather the library books and put them in neat stacks for them to spread out and read the next day. This is one mess I don't mind cleaning up at all!