Library Class

Christie has told me about library class before, but until today, I hadn't seen this little slice of chaos for myself.  Quite an interesting experience.

I'm working part-time while we get used things with the new baby, so I was watching Violet this morning.  Today being Thursday, we had Library Class.  Violet loves to go, so today I got to take her.

We parked on the street near the library and walked up.  From there, I had to rely on Violet, since I don't know this branch of the library very well.  She led me up stairs to the children's area of the library, and had a minor freakout when I put the Curious George Christmas book into the return slot.  Once I assured her that we had lots of great books at home and that we could borrow another good book, she eased and she led me into a play room.  The play room was a neat place, full of book cases, a kid-sized play castle, a kid-sized play house with kitchen, and lots of other toys scattered around.

It looked like Violet heaven.  The only thing was that I didn't see enough empty space in the room to have the kind of singing and dancing class I had envisioned from my wife's descriptions of Library Class.  I asked Violet, "Is this the room where we have library class?"

"Yup," Violet said, sifting through a shelf full of books.

I looked at the time and we were already a few minutes late, so class should have been beginning.  I thought, Maybe they're a bit behind.

A few more minutes of playing, with no obvious class organizing, I grew suspicious.  "Violet, are you sure this is where we have class?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she told me in sing-song voice, causing me to doubt her more.

Violet hadn't peed before we left the house, so I thought that maybe we should try again.  I had bad visions of an accident in front of these dozens of kids and parents.  "Violet, do you need to go to the potty?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"Well, let's try anyway," I said and led her out of the play room.  I spotted the bathroom in far corner of the floor and pointed Violet that way.

On the way, there I saw a meeting room through a glass wall.  Inside a bunch of adults and kids were dancing and singing.  OK, that was obviously class.  She's been to class here dozens of times, so I wondered if she'd misled me on purpose, or not.

We found the bathroom and tried to pee, but Violet declared, "It's not ready."

I put on the 'Christy and Violet' name tag and we opened the door into the class, only about fifteen minutes late.  The scene before me was interesting, something that doesn't come up in my normal workweek.

The lights were dim, for no reason I could figure out.  About a dozen kids were engaged in various types of play, from dancing and singing and hanging on parents.  About half of the adults were dancing and singing along and having fun with the kids, and the other half sat in the chairs by the walls, unfazed by the show.

I sat in an empty chair in the corner.  Violet jumped right into play, not exactly with any one kid or adult, but touring the room.  It took a minute to get used to the dim light and the somewhat orchestrated chaos.

I kept an eye on Violet, but she was on autopilot, clearly a Library Class professional.  I looked at the clock and saw I had about a half hour to kill, so I played along.  I sang and made the hand motions to "Ran San San," the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and some kind of song I'd never heard of about five little pumpkins.  When Violet's laps of the room brought her by my chair I'd scoop her up into my lap for a bit of singing and play, but she never stayed long.

After the songs wrapped up, the instructor in charge of the chaos broke out the parachute.  First the kids danced and crawled on the green, purple and pink plastic sheet.  After a minute of that the kids seemed to all flock to the edges of the parachute and shake it up and down.  From a closet somewhere, the instructor tossed a half dozen beach balls onto the parachute.  We kept shaking the parachute up and down bouncing the balls back and forth.  With the neon parachute undulating and the multi-colored beach balls bouncing, the scene was a trippy color overload.  Shortly, the balls disappeared and the adults worked the parachute while the kids danced like nuts underneath the parachute.

After parachute time, the instructor dumped out two bins full of musical instruments.  The kids jumped on the instruments like lions on a fallen gazelle.  So much banging, clacking, ringing--quite a bit from Violet--filled the room.  After the fray settles, the instructor begins the parade.  I bet sometimes, it's a fun parade around the room.  This class, however, the instructor and a couple others circled the pile of instruments, while most everyone else, banged and clanged in little pockets throughout the room.

As quickly as they appeared, the instruments found their way back into the bins and left the middle of the room.  I knew what was coming.  This was story time, also known as cheerio time.  I knew about this part, but it's Violet's favorite, the part she mentions whenever I ask about library class.

The kids and most parents settled into cushions on the floor while the instructor doled out little paper cups of cheerios to the kids.  The energy level in the room dropped from crazy nuts, immediately to mellow.  I wish I could pull that trick off at home, actually.  Maybe cheerios are the key.

Once each kid had a cup, the instructor went up to the front of the room to read a story.  She read "Five Little Monkey's Jumping on the Bed."  We often read that book at home, so Violet followed along closely.  When the Doctor in the story said "No more monkey's jumping on the bed," Violet shouted, "No more Violets jumping on the bed!"

After story time, the instructor said goodbye to everyone, told everyone that they could stay and play in the room if they want to, and took off.  I can't say I blame her.  She'd been gently herding cats for the better part of an hour, and doing it enthusiastically, with a smile.

The kids were spent.  I saw how much Violet loves it, even though she didn't really do what the instructor did.  I'm glad that my wife takes pains to go every week, regardless of how exhausted she was with the pregnancy, and whatever else was going on in our busy lives.