One day, you become a mother; you spend the first few weeks trying to figure out how to keep your baby alive and yourself sane. After a couple of weeks, your husband returns to work (if your family is lucky and he has paternity leave), and you are left alone with a baby, yourself, and your thoughts. It is a big change, going from working every day, outside the house 8 hours a day, to being at home with a new human who depends 100% on you to survive. The house starts to feel claustrophobic at times, especially if you have a winter baby and the weather is miserable, so you start to find excuses to go outside. But it needs to be something easy that doesn’t require too much from you. For me, this was bringing my baby to the library just to pick up books. It wasn’t much, but it felt like a lot; it felt good just to do something outside of the house.
One of those times, when picking up books at the library, I noticed other mothers doing some activities in the classrooms. That’s when I learned about the many different programs and activities the library offers. Soon, we started attending story time once a week. When my baby got a little older, he started to really enjoy the children’s dedicated area. We also started trying other children-focused activities like educational sessions, little gym-like classes, and concerts. They recently had an educational session on owls that we happened to stumble upon on a weekend visit. My child loves owls, and even though he was a little young for the presentation, he loved seeing a real owl at the library.
Another thing that I really appreciate and that has helped me stay motivated to keep reading aloud to my child and find new books for us to read together are the different reading programs the library promotes every year. So far, we’ve participated in 2 summer reading programs and the 1000 Books Before Kindergarten one. It’s just encouraging to be part of a thing that promotes reading, where you are held accountable, and you even get little prizes. It’s exciting to think that my son will soon be participating by himself.
I would love to have space to have my own library at home, with all my favorite books but who are we kidding? I don’t even have space to store essential stuff. We only have a couple of bookshelves that are already full, and we don’t really have the space to get more. So that’s another big reason why I love the library. I can read as many books as I want for free, and they won’t take up space and collect dust after I read them. Plus, it’s nice my kid has access to a wide variety of books (both in English and Spanish) without having to spend a lot of money on something he’ll only be interested in for a couple of years.
Right now, he loves going to the library to sit and “read” the books. Another random thing he loves is the huge ceiling fan in our branch’s new building. Every time we go, we say hi and goodbye to the fan (the staff already knows about his obsession with the fan, and they have even turned it on just for him).
Next year, when he turns 3, I plan to take him to get his own library card. I want him to start using it to get his own books and keep learning all that the libraries have to offer.
There have been some days when I’m struggling with motherhood and life in general, and the library has given me a place where I feel like I belong and where I can go and wander with my kid. The staff are always welcoming and very kind to both me and my child. I appreciate this so much about our libraries. While we typically attend our local branch, we have been able to explore different branches around Indianapolis, and the feeling is always the same: super cool, dedicated children’s areas, entraining child-focused activities, and kind staff. I don’t think it matters where you live, based on my experience I’m sure the library branch near you will be great. So, if you have a baby or toddler that needs to be entrained or if you just need to leave the house for a change of scenery, go to your library.
