And the Mother-of-the-Year Award Goes To...

Yesterday, I decided to try out the local public library with Miss Maddie in tow. We had not been there yet, and I thought I'd had enough of Cat in the Hat for at least a day. We parked in the smallest parking lot ever, only because someone else was leaving. Then entered the new looking library. When we got to the children's section, Madeline spotted a puzzle table and a play house and big bean bag chair; she spotted them rather loudly. After I got her shushed, I went on a search for "rhymie" books. This is not easy. I have not been in the children's section of the library since I didn't have to lean down to pick the books. I found five that seemed like they'd work well for her. I let her test them at the cutest little person table I think I've ever seen, then we were headed to the check out counter.

Madeline did not want to leave the children's section of the library. She let me know by "going limp," you know, the start of a fit when a child refuses to listen to her momma by simply sitting down on the floor while her momma tries to pull her along, that kind of "going limp."

Finally, I coaxed her to the checkout counter, and I started filling out the paperwork for a library card and getting the books ready to go.

"Mommy! Down!" which translates into, "Mommy, put me down right now, or I'll scream!" So, I put her down with a threatening warning (the kind you talk through your teeth to sound "meaner"), "Stay RIGHT HERE!"

"Okay, Momma, stay right here!" She was playing along the counter, then started heading toward the front, the glassed in entry-way to be exact. The kind of glass that you can see all the way outside to, yeah, that kind.

Yes.

She ran, head on into the wall of glass thinking that she was about to escape into the great outdoors.

"TWAPP!" then all the AARP-lovin' ladies behind the counter went, "AHHH!" (in a loud whisper, of course). She didn't cry until they did that.

I scooped her up, filled out an accident form for the librarian, took the books, and ran.

...A mother who keeps better track of her two-year-old at the library.