Toddler Tuesday

"What, Mom?" or "The Calm Before the Storm"

Thank heaven for little girls. For little girls get bigger every day....I sometimes cannot believe that I---ME!---have a 2 year old daughter. This never ceases to amaze me. There are days where I wonder if I could ever love something or someone else as much as I love her. Then, honestly, there are other days where I wonder if there will ever come a day when I will get to enjoy myself with wild abandon like I did in the days when I didn't wear the label of "Mommy". On those days--and they are few and far between---I look at this picture and see that my little girl, my baby, will grow up all too soon and that I should cherish these moments of young motherhood.

There will come a day when she will not want to raid my closet and abhors absolutely everything I wear. There will come a day when she will drive off into the sunset on a date with the boy she swears she'll marry (no matter how much her father protests that she will NEVER date). There will come a day when she beams with pride at the fact that she conquered her very own obstacles and follows her own dreams. Finally, there will come a day when she will truly understand what it means to walk in her mother's shoes, and OH how I will relish that day! The day her very own little Beastie rips through her closet, tornadoes across the house, all objects within reach being flung behind her with wild abandon, as she uses her Easter basket grass as confetti and screams at the top of her lungs: "NO MAMA! NO MAMA! BACK UP!"

Toddler Tuesday

What was meant to be a rainy day project just for Lennon turned into---well, a Mommy and Me project (more emphasis on the Mommy than the Me). Lennon certainly had her own fun with Mimi's most recent "forgotten birthday gift", but she would have rather moved her new toy around the house all day than actually color on it like it was intended to be used. I guess it didn't help that Mommy refused to share the colors or let her color on the same areas. Ahhhh, the joys of being a toddler...again. Oh well, it killed about an hour that day and at least 30 minutes a day for the rest of the week.

Toddler Tuesday

Today Lennon and I attended the Toddler Story Time at the Corvallis Benton County Library. I immediately regretted taking her there, not because the story time wasn't satisfactory, but because we would rarely ever get to come back and visit. The story time is held every Tuesday at 10am, a time that, for the moment, does not fit into my schedule. Insert frowning face here.

Visiting story times are nothing new to Lennon and I. We attended one regularly when we lived in Silverton and we occasionally frequent the one held here in Salem. But there was something about this story time that finally got Lennon excited, attentive, eager to learn and make new friends. Maybe it's the fact the she is now 2 but there was a new light and energy radiating from her as she shook her sillies out, danced the hokey-pokey, braved sitting all by herself with the group, looked to her peers for approval and camaraderie and followed along to each puppet rhyme and book that was read. Her enthusiasm was so infectious that I became the annoying mother who fully participated and loudly praised everything my child did. Lennon and I both beamed with pride and happiness as we left the library, making it a damn good day.

I highly recommend this activity and this library---and I'm not just saying that because I am a volunteer there. The staff is always helpful and knowledgeable, especially the librarians in the Children's Section. I can't count how many times I have had a general inquiry about potty training, air travel with a toddler, owning a pet (the list goes on and on) where the librarian hasn't practically held my hand and led me to any and all the information you could need on the subject. Then he or she will proceed to hand you books that fit the exact topic and reading and comprehension level of your child--not to mention that the books they suggest are always entertaining. I urge you to check out this library and all it has to offer at www.thebestlibrary.net