Story Time's Not a Good Fit

I'm still in a little bit of shock. If we had stayed at library story time for one more second, I'm convinced we would've been asked to leave & never come back. We actually left before it ended. Another Meetup fail. Another great storyteller who was friendly, engaging, clearly loves to be around small children. And what did these fellas do as soon as they hit the story time room??

Opened cabinets. Opened closets. Opened baby bags. Climbed up & through whiteboard easels. Pulled out little people chairs & attempted to stand in them. Tried to leave the room by themselves. Each at different times the entire time we were there. Forget about the room not being childproofed... the only children doing all these things were mine!! Aside from the storyteller the only other adult voice you could hear was mine: "No," "Don't do it," "Nope, nope, stop," "Baby, say excuse me," "No, darling, don't put that in your mouth,""Come to mommy," "Why, what are you doing??"

I absolutely have no idea how many times I must've pulled one boy here, stopped one boy there, moving in every conceivable direction. And all this happened in about 15 minutes. 

The marvelous thing about it too is that I could actually see their toddler brains thinking of all the fun things they could do in this brand new, big, bright space. It was a mix of mischief & pure, unadulterated delight. They were on automatic but also thoughtful & deliberate. I can't explain it, but I must say that with each day these little humans are both growing up & are becoming more savage... what the hell am I gonna do??!!

I imagined they'd love the interaction with the puppets & the songs, all the other kids. And fortunately these little boys are two of the most social people I know. They genuinely like other people & even climbed into & out of a few adult laps. Granted, I can only get through a page or two when we read at home only to have one or both rip the book out of my hands to eat it or climb up on their toddler table to baby dance.

But it's official, took today for me to actually see the reality: They're rambunctiously wild little boys who will climb, shriek, stomp, spin, push, pull, maniacally laugh, sprint, stumble, slide & throw... & it's truly only the beginning, they're not even 2 yet... 

I hoped for us to enjoy a nice (free) library story time circuit that would fill our mornings & then we'd head off to the park, beach or playdate in the afternoon. I gotta recalibrate & fast.

Sweet Jesus, I need to find a kiddie sports Meetup or run wild Meetup for 17 month olds. Or start one myself... 

Good People Alert: When we prematurely exited story time we stayed at the library because there were some nice kiddie features (like a spinning wheel maze on a wall). There were also desktop computers, & a woman was sitting there with her almost 2 year old in another chair. One of my boys was so drawn to the computer that he just walked up to the lady & tried to climb up her body to get into the chair. She kindly picked him up & let him sit in her lap while she & her daughter were enjoying a counting game. Really nice woman & her daughter was sweet as candy.