Mischief Maker

Brent and I are avid readers and want to share that passion with our children. I know she's a little young, but I have been taking Clara Mae to the library for the past couple months, you know, to get her love affair with books started! One of our local libraries hosts this really fun little "Baby Time" on Wednesdays. We sing little songs and do little dances and play with bubbles. We LOVE the bubbles. We also have to beat the other children away from Clara's snacks, and our little book time turns into an all out throw down between the infants and toddlers over sippy cups and Cheerios.

It. Is. Awesome.

But this is a story about a very different library time. This is not a story about "Baby Time". This is a story about how Miss Maze got us kicked out of the library.



A couple days ago, I offered to take my young cousins to the library. They love to read and considering the library is free, air conditioned entertainment, it is one of our go-to summer destinations. When we arrived, my cousins took off to peruse the shelves in search of their next daydreams, and Maze and I strolled over to the baby section where we could hang out until they had made their selections and were ready to leave. The baby section is fabulous and simple. There is an alphabet rug sprawled across the corner of the large library flanked by two long but short bookshelves, jam-packed with board books perfect for baby. As many of you know, I have bookshelves in my home. What you may not know, however, is that Clara is not allowed to touch the books on my shelves. Only Mommy can remove books from Mommy's shelves. At the library, though, she can remove every book she sees from the shelves, and, trust me, she does!



She and I sat on the floor, me crawling after her, her giggling and grabbing more and more books to open and toss across the rug. And that's when it happened: Security came over to tell us we needed to leave. Maze had broken a library rule. Anyone care to guess what it was?



She wasn't being too loud.
She wasn't chewing on the books.
She hadn't damaged any of the books.

Her crime? She wasn't wearing shoes.



No joke. The security guard told me they had a strict "No shoes, no shirt, no service" policy and was shocked that I didn't have shoes for her in my bag.

I casually mentioned she doesn't walk yet, but it didn't change anything.

I called over my cousins, told them to check out their books, and we left.

Ridiculous, right? It was the BABY section, for crying out loud!

I learned my lesson, and this weekend, I will go buy her a pair of shoes. They can be birthday shoes, since her first birthday is Tuesday. OMG. My baby is going to be a year old! Where has this year gone?!

In other news, I have been a Top Parenting Site for Toddlers.



Such an honor! You can check out the complete list here if you are interested.