Once Upon A Time...

Yesterday I registered Nicholas for Story Time at the library.

In the past, we've only done Toddler Story Times. Registration was done by phone, and parents simply called up (fighting the busy signal) and signed up their child for one of two morning sessions.

But Big Kid Story Time is a little different. It was a process that had always confused me. Instead of calling up, you had to be there in person, and it was done by number, and there were 5 different sessions available, a few in the morning, a few in the afternoon, and on different days... The registration leaflet said numbers were handed out as soon as the library opened at 9am. So I packed up both kids, and we were there a good ten minutes before the library opened.

As I drove up the dead end street where the library lives, I thought to myself that it seemed there were an awful lot of police and firefighters parked in the lots today, but I chalked it up to some public service meeting that I didn't know about.

And then we pulled into the library.

I just want to make clear that I had wanted to be there at 9am for a reason, and that Steve smiled at me indulgently as we left, exclaiming that he was sure we'd be back in ten minutes. Part of me thought he was wrong, but a bigger part of me really, really wanted to believe him.

There was not one parking spot at the library, and the line in front of the doors snaked down the walk and onto the walk beside the parking lot. Kids were running and screaming everywhere. The library was not yet open.

Once the library was open, the children's librarians handed out numbers to each person in line, which let me know just how many people were in front of me on the line. I was number 52. FIFTY TWO! So then we had to wait at the library, along with fifty four other families (there were only 3 people behind me) while the librarians called each number up and signed children of our town up for an hour of stories and arts and crafts each week.

I wasn't sure I was going to sign Nick up, anyway. I mean, he has school 3 days a week. I don't know if this is something he needs, or if it will just take away from time he could be doing something else. I've thought that it might make more sense to sign him up for gymnastics or music or something he can't get elsewhere. But this has obvious attraction because 1 - it's free and 2 - I know these librarians. Also 3 - Nick loves the library. So I went for it, figuring we had nothing to loose. Except, apparently for sanity. Because it was nuts there, it really was. I never expected it to be such mayhem.