Tornado Ben

     The problem with having an independent, creative child is that on any given day, he can decide that he does not need to listen to a flingin', flangin' word you have to say. Today just so happened to be one of those days.

     On our drive to the library today for storytime, Ben and I talked about listening, about cooperation, and how we were going into a quiet place where we would need to be polite, obedient, and sit still. "Okay, Mommy," Ben said. "I'll be a good boy."

     He held my hand as we walked in, took in all the sights and sounds, and behaved very well as we waited in the kid's section. I should've been suspicious because THIS is what I was in for:

     Well, maybe it wasn't THAT bad, but that's essentially how we were treated. Of the 8 or so kids in attendance, Ben was pretty much the only one who felt the need to be verbal in his responses to the reader.

     "Are you a horse?" asked the Librarian, as she read a story about ponies.
     "NOOOOOOO!" yelled Ben

     "Are you going to sit down now?"
     "I want to dance."

     "Who wants to hear another story?"
     "Hey, Mom! There's a crocodile!"

     No, really. There WAS a crocodile... it was a stuffed floor mat that all the other well behaved kids were sitting on. In the twenty minutes we were there, Ben changed seats no less than seventy four times, stood during the sitting time, sat during the standing time, clapped during the quiet part of the songs because he thought they were over, and made loud, verbose requests for cheese sticks.

     My whispered pleas for him to please just be quiet fell on deaf ears while we garnered what I consider to be the most intense look of disgust I have ever seen in my life.

     This lady's eyes cut me to my core and her judgement of me hit me square in the face. It hurt my feelings so much that Ben and I actually got up and left. While, yes, I may be exaggerating about the extent of Ben's actions (he wasn't really THAT bad), I'm not exaggerating about this. She was so mean with just a look, when B was only being a kid. He just turned 2 for crying out loud...

    We came home and read our own books. I let him ask as many questions as he wanted.