The Rules

It's official.  The local librarians hate me.  I truly think they cringe whenever they see us coming through the door.  To their credit, my little people defy every library rule, spoken or unspoken.  They are loud, knowing nothing of the three inch voice that is so widely taught to children today.  They run away.  Sometimes toward the children's reading section and sometimes toward the front door which gives every good librarian heart palpitations, especially sweet Ms. Betsy who tries to chase them down.  They mess with the computers.  At least one PC is forcibly shut down by my son every time we patron our local library.  They hide behind bookshelves and recently have perfected the crawl-in-bookshelf-and-hide technique.  So once a week at Orange County Library, there is  a wild-eyed mother (me) looking for a pair of raucous, roving, hiding, computer damaging three year-olds.

A wise woman taught me that you can't discipline where you haven't trained.  Point taken.  So about a month ago, we began to set "library rules" and review them on the drive to each of our weekly trips:

1.  No hiding.
2.  No running away from Mommy.
3.  Stay in the children's section.
4.  Computers are not for you.
5.  Have fun!  (I felt compelled to throw that one in so the library would not become a place of doom for my children.  After all, it would behoove them to enjoy books later in life).

Today, we took our weekly trip.  Full disclosure, we have been cooped up in the house by a mid-March snow and this was our first outing in two days.  Suffice to say, we were going stir crazy and something was bound to happen.  As we sat outside the building, I reviewed the rules one last time.

Mom:  Okay guys, tell me what we do in the library.

Henry: No hiding.  Don't run away!

Harper:  No computers.  Have fun!

They were ready.  Harper hopped out and was already on the sidewalk by the time Henry emerged from the vehicle.  Both ran for the handicapped button which causes the door to automatically open.  Harper reached it first.  One more double door and handicap button to go.  The unspoken twin rule would say that because Harper got to press the first button, Henry would take a turn with the second.  But in an act of pure disregard, Harper pressed the second automatic door button, incensing great rage in her brother.  Before I knew it, Henry was chasing his sister through the library corridor in a full battle charge, while Harper ran zig zag in a screaming high-pitch voice until they finally reached the back of the building where young Henry tackled his sister to the ground.

What.  Just.  Happened.  We had reviewed the rules!  We were ready for a fun morning!  We were all just getting along!  Now, as every head turned and our trio of librarians reached for their blood pressure meds, my little duo headed to the bathroom for a chat and a time out.  Needless to say, our library trip lasted all of ten minutes.  At another time in my motherhood journey, I would have taken their little hands and walked right back out the front door, but hey, we needed books to keep us sane at home and I wasn't willing to squander the opportunity.

So starting today we have a new library rule:  No tackling.