Library fun

Mom asked me to make her an appointment for a manicure/pedicure at the nail salon on base. Since I knew we'd be spending the better part of the week all active and stuff, I made the appointment for today because they are leaving tomorrow and she can ride off into the sunset (they are heading West) with pampered hands and feet. These things are important.

Only, I have to be with her to get her on base unless we want to deal with the Visitors Center and the ordeal of obtaining a pass for her and Richard, which I most definitely do NOT when I can just put them in my car and drive right on in. I'm lazy and impatient like that.

So now the question is what to do with the kids. I figure it will take about an hour or so before she's done and surely, surely I can find something to do with the kids on base that won't cost anything but can hold their attention until Mom is done. Hmm....

Ooohhh!!! The library. The children's section is closed off from the rest of the library and the kids love books.

So. We are going to wait for Mom at the library.

When I tell the kids? They aren't as excited as I am about the prospect of this. Probably because it involves being quiet and not raking all the books off the shelf like they do at home. But we are going anyway.

Richard decides that since we are heading to the library, he'll go too. Um, okay. I just figured he'd remain in the cone of safety that would have been my childless living room. This ended up adding a trip to the commissary to the schedule, but hey, I needed a few things anyway and it will eat up some of the time we have to burn.

We drop Mom off and head to the commissary. Two mangos, some snow peas, root beer, a tomato, a boatload of yogurt, some OJ, and a few other items later, we are heading to the car in what feels like an actual bowl of soup. I thought North Carolina was humid, but it's got nothing on Illinois. BLECH. Luckily, I still had my cooler in a cooler going, so I was able to keep the yogurt and OJ nice and cool while the rest of us melted. And by us, I mean me. No one else said a world about temperate misery.

We get to the library, and the first thing T sees is a kids computer station. However, there is only one, it's in the middle of the main library, and since quiet is welcomed and expected I knew better than the let one of my two use it because the result? Would not be quiet. Guaranteed.

Instead, I ushered them into the kids' room. And by ushered, I mean dragged. It's a pretty cool kids' area, actually. I tried reading them a book - that didn't work. I tried letting them pick out a book. That didn't work like I hoped. I tried showing them how to correctly put back the books they were randomly choosing. I put a lot of books back. On the bright side? I got to brush up on my filing skills, which should come in handy should I ever decide to tackle the ever growing mound of filing that is waiting for me in the hall closet. Sigh....

As I'm looking through a book on trains with S, I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye and turn just in time to see T standing on one of the smaller bookcases and leap off onto the floor.

Oh no he didn't!

Oh yes he did.

So I pull him aside to explain the dozens of reasons that is not a good idea and the hundreds of ways I can torture him as punishment. He's moved by none of this and S takes this opportunity to pull out a handful of books and use them as a step stool for her to reach one of the stuffed animals on a shelf. I guide them over the the kiddie tables and hope that the abacus and puzzles should keep them occupied long enough for me to clean up the mess they've created. And that was true if you consider 'making a band' out of the toys to equal 'occupied'.

Since the kids have been asking to leave the kids room since we got there and it's already been almost an hour since we dropped Mom off and since they were obviously hell bent on destroying either the room or my sanity, we walked back into the main part of the library. T immediately goes and sits down in front of the kiddie computer. Luckily a password was needed and no one was at the main desk that very second (they were probably reviewing video tape of the near Apocalypse from our visit to the kids section), I talked them into sitting down near Richard in the magazine section. And - AHA!!!!!! I discovered a chess/checkerboard. T and R are playing chess together occasionally which means that my five year old? Can beat me at chess already since I have no idea how to play. T and I play a game of checkers as S makes the chess pieces have a tea party. We are setting up the chess board when a young kid comes up and asks to play. Well, heck yeah! I give up my seat and try to keep S entertained. By now I think Mom should have called, so I pull out my cell to check it. Freaky McFreakdom, she was calling as I pulled the phone out. Apparently, when I set it to silent, I forgot to turn on the vibrate feature, so Mom's first words were, "This is the fourth time I've called...." to which my reply? Was a profuse apology and to tell her we would be right there. I picked up S, apologized to the very, very nice kid playing Chess with T and signaled to Richard that we needed to go.

So we went and picked up Mom, who was no longer angry by the time we got there. Whew. The rest of the day? Seems boring in comparison, so I'll spare you the details. Let me just sum it up quickly: lunch, potty trips, torrential unrelenting rain, creative dinner making since it was too wet to grill, massive T tantrum over not eating a 'yucky' dinner, my shock at R giving in to T's demands to eat something after he refused dinner and made a scene, my going to our bedroom for a Mommy induced time out, Mom and Richard saying goodbye, R and I carefully avoiding talking about the T dinner theater.

See? Told you it was boring!