I Spy a library book! And it better not be torn!

This weekend, I took the boys to Storyville, one of our favorite and easy go-to places when we're looking for something to do to get out of the house. I'd wanted to take them to the park/playground, because the weather was beautiful (damn global warming!) but it had rained all night Friday so I was in no mood to brave the mud.

This Storyville visit ended a little differently than others have. The boys actually wanted me to read them the books they have strewn around the place, instead of just running around from station to station, unable to sit still. So we read a bunch of stories and discovered that the boys LOVE "I Spy" books (the board books; not the bigger, more complicated ones). They loved them so much that when it was time to leave, a major hissy fit started. They both wanted to take an I Spy book with them. I tried explaining that we couldn't take the books home, that they were for everyone to share, and for other children to use when they came to Storyville, but you all know how well explaining things logically to 2-year-olds works.

Anyway, turns out you CAN take the books home, because, DUH!, Storyville is a part of the Baltimore County library! All you need is a library card. Up until this weekend, I'd thought my boys were still a little young for borrowed books. Occasionally, a fight still breaks out over one of their books and pages get ripped and timeouts ensue and lectures happen about the sanctity of books. Everyone is appropriately remorseful, but the end result is still a torn book. When the books belong to us, I can deal. But I thought another year or two might do the boys well before we took on the responsibility of other people's books.

But they wanted I Spy books so bad! And I knew we'd never leave the library without it.

So we did the library-lesson a year or so early, and checked out six books, including one each that they got to pick out for themselves, and even one for Mommy ("Blood, Bones and Butter" -- which was my book club book LAST month. Ahem.) Dean picked out a Llama Llama board book that is actually more appropriate for Clair, and Cary picked out a Cars book that is waaaaay too advanced for him and also stupid, and I flat out hate reading it. Seriously, it is the dumbest book. I have no idea who that book was written for.  So I hope that the book-picking will someday get better. For now, though, I know that it really doesn't matter what they pick; just the fact that they are learning about the library and how it works -- and reading anything -- is all that matters.

 ******

In other news, we started the next session of music class, much to the boys' happiness. They literally jumped up and down and said "YAAAYYY!" when I told them Sunday morning that they were going back to music class. So color Lester and me both completely shocked when Cary acted a pure fool at the class, screaming and crying and refusing to participate. He was tired from a long night out at Lester's Aunt Tootie's house, and an early morning to boot, but his losing-of-his-ever-loving-mind went way beyond being tired. We don't know what his issue is lately, but Lordhavemercy. It stinks.

The only good thing about his weirdness lately is how sweet Dean is to him when Cary's having a moment. He really tries to care for him, and it is quite touching.  He is a very, very good brother. I hope it lasts a lifetime. The caring, not the craziness.