Libraries are for Learning

Lessons learned on our trip to the library today:

1) If your one-year-old's favorite activity at home is pulling books off of shelves and generally displacing everything that is where it rightfully should be, do not take him to the library.

2) If, in your anxiety to wrangle up your maniacal one-year-old, you cannot remember to use your inside voice, you should not go to the library either.

3) If your one-year-old has perfected the limp-body, arched-back, arms-in-the-air protest to anything he does not want to do, do not take him to the library! You will look like you are kidnapping a child when you forcibly remove him from said library. 

As you may have guessed, Wilder and I went to the library today with our friends, Rachel and Lexi, for a song and story time. Wilder, however, was interested in everything but the song and story time. The group wasn't super structured so there were kids all over the room but most of them paid at least a little attention to the purpose for being in the room. Wilder, on the other hand, totally tuned every song and story out and went into explore mode. He was so fascinated by that new place he'd never been and made sure to investigate all the major points of interest. 

Hmm, good quality tile they've got

here. Looks to be locally-made.

Chair appears to be in working order.

Now what do we have here?

The lights! Look at the lights!

And then explore mode carried over into the children's section of library books. I swear, Wilder had a mini heart attack when he saw all those books. He knew exactly what to do and immediately began pulling them off the shelf two at a time, inspecting them, discarding them, and pulling off two more while I went behind him and put them all back. This is where I may or may not have lost my inside voice. And may or may not have been shushed over the intercom. I'd like to think that shush was meant for someone else but, let's be honest, it wasn't. 

 Moving right along...

Those are the only photos I have of our time in the book aisles because after that it got exponentially less fun.

I did get a few other cute photos though...

Wilder pushing the car and

saying Voom-voom!

Cutie pies

 Inspecting their shoes

 Too busy for pictures

Needless to say, Wilder had a fantastic time at the library today and had to be physically pried away from the premises. Although I was totally worn out by the time we left, I had fun watching him explore and absorb it all. We'll definitely be going back but next time I'll be more prepared for what to expect (i.e. controlled mayhem).