Things I Love Thursdays: The Local Library

Did you know it's National Library Week? I totally didn't, until I stumbled into my local library on Tuesday. Baby loves books, loves to thumb through them on his own and to be read to. We've been reading with him since he born, primarily because of how much I love reading, and he just adores it. We try to go to the library every few weeks, but it's been a while since we've been. We had a cycle of books that Baby just loved, and I couldn't bear to bring them back after the first three weeks of them being checked out, so we renewed them, and just finally returned them this week.We've been to three different libraries in town - Tampa's kind of big, and there are over 10 libraries in town. All there had a really nice children's section, and the two we frequent most often have a separate children's library, so the kids can run around and have fun without the parents worrying that they are disturbing the other patrons of the library. I tend to gravitate toward one library in particular, because they seem to have the most board books, and right now, Baby is not very nice to books, so the sturdy construction of a board book is really important.

A mom I met a while back was totally freaked out about me checking out board books from the library. "Oh my God, what if they chewed on the books?" she asked me, positively horrified (she was an absolute germaphobe). I shrugged. "So I wipe it off with a Wet One or something, big woo."

I love our time at the library, both for Baby and for me. I'm trying to cut back a lot this year, with me staying home and not raking in the big bucks anymore, and I was (still am a little) a compulsive book buyer. Granted, the library doesn't get the new releases as quickly as I would like for them to, you can request a hold on the book you want, and you get notified when it's ready. Most of the time, as a compulsive book buyer, I buy books and don't read them for like a year, so this method isn't much different. And it's way cheaper. Now, in the digital age, the library emails me when a book is due, so I don't forget I have it and then find myself using Baby's college tuition fund to cover the late fees. It's pretty cool like that.

So, go out and visit your library today! It's one of my favorite ways to spend time. If I weren't sick today, after all this talking, I would totally go and visit myself.

Crap, wait a second...it's not Thursday, is it? Oh my goodness, I'm losing my mind....well, screw it. It's belated Things I Love Thursday, darn it.