We are officially out of lockdown! Goodbye winter quarantine, hello spring!
So in celebration of being able to leave our house, I decided to take Scarlette to the 0-2 Story Time at our local library. Support your local library, amen.
My child loves reading, as evidenced by the photos above. I mean, you saw the cutest video in the world, right? And if not, don’t tell me that you skipped watching a video of my baby. I prefer to remain under the impression that everyone finds her as irresistibly cute and charming as I do.
Since she is all about books and loves it when we read to her, I naturally assumed that she would love it when other people read to her and thus, would love story time.
The first rule of parenting? Never assume anything. Rookie mistake, y’all. Rookie mistake.
The thing is, here’s the thing: while she really does love listening to people read to her, it turns out that she loves attacking other children more.
She saw the other children sitting so nicely on the circle rug, all criss cross applesauce with their listening ears perked to hear a tale about bunny rabbits and she was like “OTHER BABIES! MUST! GRAB! ALL! THE! OTHER! BABIES!”
And as I gently restrained her from launching herself at the them, she threw herself on the floor and began what I like to call ” Scarlette’s First Meltdown In Public.”
Never having really been in public with Scarlette, I was completely unprepared to handle this situation.
I mean, I’ve pictured that moment in my head. The one where she loses it and I calmly and swiftly resolve the situation while the other mothers glance at one another and nod their approval, in silent agreement that I am a fantastic mother and obviously they should invite me to join their play group.
In real life, however, it went down like this: “Holy crap my child has never thrown a fit like this before. I have no idea what to do. Should I take her out? Do I leave all my stuff? Where do I go, the library is not really all that big? OMG is she seriously kicking her feet right now? I really need to do something because I feel like an idiot. I’ll just start handing her random things out of her diaper bag. Crap, I was not expecting that other little kid to take her teething ring away from her. I have no idea what the social protocol is here. Do I just take it back? I’m going to just take it back. Great, now the other little kid is digging in my diaper bag for Scarlette’s snacks. Oh, crumb. Why are libraries so flipping quiet? That is only making my kid’s screaming sound even louder. I vote we all start talking in libraries. Not talking in the library is a stupid rule. Good, they turned on some music. She likes music. Yay, let’s clap! WHY IS SHE STILL CRYING?! This is not how I pictured story time. Maybe if I let her go she will calm down. Okay, letting her go was a terrible idea. How long is story time anyways?”
Then the story time lady handed Scarlette a sticker, which she promptly set about trying to eat and that occupied her through the next round of The Wheels On The Bus.
After that we attempted making a bunny rabbit craft and by attempted I mean I handed Scarlette the paintbrush and she repeatedly threw it in the floor. There is a one eyed, one legged bunny hanging on our fridge.
And that is the story of our first visit to story time.
Tune in next week for another episode of Motherhood: I Have No Idea What I’m Doing. 😉
