23 Months Old!

I can't believe Amelia is almost two. To celebrate, today we had our first official trip to the Library. We have a small library in our town, even smaller than the one in the town where I have my first library memories. In that library, like the one in the larger town down the road, the children's section was in the basement. As Amelia and I turned right to explore the children's section in what is now "her" library, I thought I caught a faint basement smell and couldn't help but think of my own memories. sniff sniff. (The summer cold probably doesn't help either.)

Amelia wasn't sure what to make of the shelves of books but she quickly spotted, among the many children's books standing on top of the Mommy-waist-high bookshelves Good Night Moon which is one of her all-time favorites. She immediately began asking for it, reaching with her arm and saying "Moon! Moon!" I gently explained that we weren't here to read books she already had but to read books that were new to her. She responded, with arm stretched upward, "Moon! Moon!" It didn't help that Goodnight Moon was sitting right above where I was trying to locate If You Give a Moose a Muffin. She loves If You Give a Pig a Pancake, and I've already ordered If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, so I figured we'd check out the Moose one. She wasn't too interested, but there was If You Give a Pig a Party and that one sparked some interest, so we took that one. While I was scanning through the Laura Numeroff books she discovered it was great fun to run up and down the aisle that was created by the bookshelves. Since she was quiet about it, and there were only two other people in the library, I let her do it or a few minutes. I figured it was her toddler way of exploring and enjoying the library, and I want her to learn to love it as much as I do.

After a few minutes, I took her over to a bin of stuffed animals, but she wasn't interested, so I helped her into one of the chairs at the children's table. Unfortunately, there isn't much room for feet that stick up, so she didn't have as much freedom as she liked, so she got down after a couple of minutes. While she was there, she spotted a Clifford book and I got it for her. She leafed through and said "Doggy" a few times. As we left the children's section, she discovered it was fun to walk along the row of books and lightly run her hand across the spines. When we checked out I let her hand the librarian the card and I was surprised when Amelia actually did it, rather than doing her "shy act" and burying her head in my shoulder.

Before heading home we went by CVS since they have diapers on sale. On the way out, the clerk hollered to Amelia, "Bye little guy!" The last time she wore this outfit she was told she was a "Handsome Fella". The little ice cream cones on front weren't super obvious to either person, but still, I didn't think this outfit looked little boyish. Oh well.

[picture dated 8/22/07]