Toddler Tricks - 100: Use the Library

Problem: It's summer time and it's hot and you don't have $35 to blow on the movies, or rollerskating, or bowling, or whatever fun-filled, spend-all-your-wages-here, activities advertised by businesses. You're all pooled out, and the park is like a desert. What do you do?


Solution: I don't know about your library, but ours does free stuff. ALl the time. Every week you can find some random thing going on at the library--almost all of them kid-based. Last year we saw jugglers there, and the girls talked about it for months. At some point there is going to be a yo-yo champion show, and this last week, we saw a music show there.





Now as you can see, it wasn't a flashy, totally overwhelming show of musical delight.It was actually a young guy with his old bass and a drum he made out of a suitcase. And it was awesome. The girls loved it. They paid attention and learned about tuning and how instruments make music with interest. They were able to play the instruments (but not the kazoo. I wouldn't let them touch the kazoo.) It was 90 minutes of fun for them and me. In the cool.

And even when the library isn't pulling out all the homemade-instrument stops, they do story times at least once a week for the kids. And if nothing is going on, well, so be it. Go anyway. Read the stories yourself! My kids love the library, and so do I. I'm thankful I stuck with it after all those dicey visits when they were younger (and LOUD).