The end of storytime?

My daughter and I might be done with library storytime, and it’s forcing me into an unexpected existential crisis.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve felt out of sorts, out of sync and unsettled. I think it’s because I’m missing Mr. Chufo and the Tuesday morning storytime at the downtown branch of the Denver Public Library. You see, Mr. Chufo got a promotion, which means he’s working at another branch. That’s great for him, and sad for the storytime regulars (and all the newcomers, too, if I’m being honest). But what has me feeling even more out of sorts is the fact that we’ve had to stop going to Tuesday storytime altogether.

My daughter never stops moving. At home, this is a fact I must deal with but can control to a certain degree. But when we get to the library, I have to play a non-stop prevent defense.

Over the course of 25 minutes (the length of storytime), Eleanor will:

• Make a mad dash for the exit (6x) 
• Grab other, smaller children’s copies of the storytime books (5x) 
• Grab other, smaller children’s toys, binkies, etc. (4x) 
• Lunge for the guitar/ukelele while it is being played by the storyteller (3x) 
• Attack the life-sized teddy bear (3x) 
• Beg other parents for food (2x) 
• Leave Daddy out of breath from chasing her and from saying sorry to other parents for the whole 25 minutes (1,000,000x) 

This is (mostly) normal toddler behavior, I gather, though it sure seems like my slightly late walker is making up for lost time during her earlier, immobile months. People like to say, she’s “busy.” That’s absolutely true. She is very good at entertaining herself by reading every book in the house, taking every toy out of her toy chest, every DVD off the shelf, every utensil out of every kitchen cabinet she can reach, etc. (I use etc. here because I’m getting exhausted just listing all the ways that my daughter spends her time). People (including me) get tired just watching her go for only five minutes. Sometimes she literally just runs around in circles.

But this newfound “busyness” has me feeling a bit lonely. In a way, I feel like I’m losing the communities (like the library) in which I felt safe and connected. It might be different if my daughter were talking to me, but she’s too busy exploring every nook and cranny of the reachable universe for a climbing, 33-inch-tall 16-month-old. It’s a hard realization, knowing that we have to establish a new routine, filled with new people and new situations in which I have to be social with people I don’t know.

I spend these days trying not to live in a perpetual state of exasperation. It’s a fun word for a frustrating state of being -- it feels like a combination of exhaustion, a realization that you exist solely to set limits for your curious, speed-demon toddler, and a constant seeking of a moment’s peace where you’re not making sure she doesn’t stick her finger in a socket or wrap an electric cord around her neck (seriously -- I’m not exaggerating!).

***

And then I took her to a gymnastics class. We won’t talk about the ridiculous exhausting afternoon that followed the gymnastic class. That nightmare was filled with a constant stream of reading the same books again and again and deliberate defiance of boundaries, climbing on furniture and running down the street (thankfully, she at least agrees to stay on the sidewalk most of the time).

It’s hard to describe Eleanor’s glee at the gym. She was so giddy she was reduced to guttural screaming as she ran from station to station. She climbed, she balanced, she jumped, she hung from a high bar (by herself!); for 45 straight minutes she never stopped. Watching her not-stopping is pretty par for the course, but living in the joy of her movement was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I have never seen someone having so much fun as my daughter did for those 45 minutes. We were supposed to go through stretching exercises and an obstacle course designed to teach the kids how to do cartwheels.

Yeah, right. She broke free from my grip and climbed the first foam block she could find.

What a relief it must be to a toddler that she can move! She can walk, run, climb, twirl, hang, jump. For the first time in her life, she can really MOVE! She begins her life in a 3D world and takes her place among the adults, in a way. It’s so hard to imagine how huge the transition to walking must be for toddlers.

This afternoon, when I could no longer contain/entertain my not-stopping toddler, we went for a walk. Eleanor ran down the sidewalk as she normally does, but she stopped in front of a neighbor’s house, where a man retrieved a wheelchair from the trunk of his SUV and wheeled it into the house. She stared at what he was doing for a long time.

So did I.

Managing an active child is hard, exhausting, and terrifying. But next time I find myself getting exasperated, I will remember her joy and be grateful for her movement.

How I learned to stop worrying and love storytime

(Eleanor’s here today, Eleanor’s here today! We’re all so glad that Eleanor’s here, let’s all shout Hooray!)

The first time I went to a library storytime, Eleanor was three months old.

It was terrifying.

We sang six songs and read three books in 20 minutes. We sat in a circle in the children’s library in the downtown Central Branch of the Denver Public Library. We sang a song to welcome each child to the group. We waved scarves while playing with egg shakers and bouncing our children and clapping their hands and stomping their feet. And after it was all over, the man leading the group unlocked a cabinet where several tubs of plastic toys were stored and proceeded to dump the toys onto the floor. The older babies eagerly creeped, crawled and walked over to the toys. Eleanor stared at everyone and occasionally smiled. I held my breath and considered my exit.

I didn’t know we were going to have to sing songs, and I certainly didn’t know anyone would be focusing on me or my daughter. I enjoy attention, but on my terms. And my terms never include singing in public.

That first storytime may have been the most intimidating, overwhelming experience of my life. I’m not joking. I felt like my life was on fast forward and I had no control over the remote. Or, you could say, I felt like I was a step behind everyone else -- I was trying to learn the songs and sing them at the same time as trying to master the motions and manage Eleanor, too.

(All around the cobbler's bench, the monkey chased the weasel...)

And through it all, I had a sinking feeling: if this was what I was supposed to be doing at home in terms of baby stimulation, I was failing badly. (This sinking feeling recurs repeatedly, no matter how many months pass in my life as a dad).

Eleanor was the youngest baby there by a few months. After the chaos was over I understood why. Not for Eleanor’s sake -- she seemed to enjoy it -- but for mine. I was exhausted (and, truthfully, so was Eleanor -- she fell asleep before we even left the children’s section of the library).

I clearly wasn’t ready for parental socialization. Because that’s what it is when you have really young babies. In a way, much of what you do as a parent in public, at first, is try to connect with other parents, because they know what you’re feeling and they’re just as scared as you are. That’s a comforting feeling when you have no idea what you’re doing.

I felt awkward bringing such a young baby, but I was determined to make this stay-at-home dad thing work, and to do so I needed activities, structures that gave me something to do and look forward to.

(The noble Duke of York, he had 10,000 men, he marched them up to the top of the hill and he marched them down again!)

Back then (six months equals two-thirds of Eleanor’s life, so I reserve the right to use such a qualifier), I had a calendar and everything: Mondays we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Tuesdays it was storytime, Wednesdays were for walks, Thursdays were for the Zoo, and Fridays meant that it was time for the Meetup playgroup.

That schedule lasted for about two weeks, because, well, I had a baby who has her own mind and wanted to do things at her own pace and in her own time. I couldn’t go to storytime if Eleanor was napping. I couldn’t make the playgroup if I was meeting my wife at work for Eleanor’s lunchtime feeding. I couldn’t go to the zoo if it was 15 degrees outside.

But this isn’t really a story about how scary library storytime is. It’s really about how much I love storytime and the Denver Public Library system.

(Zoom, Zoom, Zoom! We’re going to the moon! Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, we’ll get there very soon!)

It took a couple more months of adjustment (Eleanor's and mine), particularly in the nap department, but now storytime is an essential part of my life and my daughter’s life. We both look forward to it. So much so, that I am pretty sure that my daughter’s first word (aside from her indiscriminate use of “mama” and “dada”) is “library.” She usually says this word -- or something approximating it -- on Mondays. It’s like she’s anticipating the Tuesday adventure we go on every week.

Nine times out of ten, I’m the only man there, aside from Mr. Chufo, the kindhearted, bilingual, guitar-playing leader of storytime. Oddly enough, it’s also one of the only places where I am in the stay-at-home dad role but no-one seems to find it “odd,” or “different,” or “great” that I am taking care of my daughter while my wife works. At storytime, we’re all just parents, trying to do the best for our children and to reach out in solidarity.

Now, I feel like an old pro at storytime. I see new parents in the circle every once in awhile, and I understand how they feel. Eleanor’s practically a veteran, too, and she loves it. She has a smile on her face the whole time, whether she has napped well that morning or not. She likes interacting with the other 6- to 9-month-olds -- she even steals their toys...I remember when she was younger and the tables were turned.

The library is a glorious place, and it feels like a second home to me as a stay-at-home parent. There are no words for how much I appreciate having a (free) place to take Eleanor where she can be safe, stimulated and happy interacting with other babies. And before storytime starts, I love trawling through the stacks, looking for cool books I can read to her at home and for books that will satisfy my own intellectual curiosity.

Every week, I look forward to Tuesday. I’m ready, now. Singing six songs and reading three books in half an hour? No problem.

(I’m a book baby, book baby, I love to read! Read at the library!)