And There's One About the Duke of York

Wednesday was our third trip to story hour at the library. It's "Book Babies" for 12-to-24-month-olds, but despite being near the younger end (or maybe because of that), Cora's done really well so far. She spent most of the first week looking stunned (as did I, probably), but she's warmed up nicely. It's every Wednesday for four weeks, and when I signed up that seemed like a short run, but now I think it will be perfect.

We visit the "Main" Evanston Library uptown pretty regularly, but had not been to the "South Branch," which is in a smaller storefront-type space just a couple blocks from our house. I'm glad we signed up for the one at South Branch, because it turns out they have a pretty decent children's room I didn't know about, plus it's been way too cold to walk uptown to Main.

When you sign up of course you don't know what you're going to get, but I'm pleased that it's been exactly what I was hoping for: a mixture of books read aloud, and songs, and little hokey-pokey-type games. The librarian who runs it does a great job--the right pace, the right crowd control, good selection of activities. And the price is right at free dollars.

It's also been a good mixture of materials we're already familiar with and stuff I've never heard before. Most of the songs and rhymes for little ones that I know are ones I remember from my own pre-school days, and we like those but also needed some fresh blood.

However, every week there are a couple of songs where I seem to be the only adult who doesn't know the words! Baby Belu-whaaat? I mean, I've heard of Baby Beluga, but I must've missed the memo where we all learned the actual words. And it's even harder to fake the ones that have motions to go with the song. Those moments are slightly reminiscent of those dreams where you're suddenly back in school and there's a test and you're the only person who didn't know about it and hasn't studied. I may be getting a D in Maisie 101.

There are also plenty of songs we do know, though, and you should see Cora's look of surprise when the whole roomful of people starts singing a song that normally just the two of us sing. I think up until now she may have thought I was the original author of the Itsy-Bitsy Spider.

So I'm sure it's like everything else in parenthood--eventually it'll seem like the most natural thing in the world, but for now it's still a bit surreal. How did I come to be sitting on the carpet singing a song about cuckoo clocks with a bunch of other adults? Because it's not the kids singing at this point. I'm glad we're going, and glad we're going at this age, though. In addition to my goal of picking up a few new songs and stories, now that we're there I think Cora's getting some exposure to a few important skills relating to participating in a group activity. Sometimes it's time to all be quiet and pay attention to the group leader. When you're the group leader you'll want everyone to pay attention to what you're saying, right?

Plus if we hadn't gone to story hour, I probably wouldn't have learned the second verse to Ring Around the Rosie and would never have learned that you get back up:

Cows are in the meadow,
eating buttercups.
thunder, lightning [pat hands against lap to make thunder]
We all stand up!