Yesterday Emily and I went on a mother/daughter adventure to the far away library. Our nearby library is closed for renovations so we went further afield. The kids were crazy yesterday so we really could only handle one at a time and I pulled the 2-year old straw for the library adventure.
We headed up to the path to the tram. The trams in Melbourne run in the middle of larger streets so you only cross halfway on the crosswalk and stand in the death-defying middle of the road until the tram comes. I feel like it could be a little safer than a metal fence separating you from oncoming traffic but I am not an Australian city planner. Emily was very good and held on to the fence and didn't move until the tram arrived. She took the big steps up in to the tram and sat in the nearby seat.
Emily's platinum blond hair makes her pretty conspicuous so people have a hard time not looking at her. That and she tends to not be that quiet either. "Mom I can see people and cars" and "what is that person doing?", etc. etc. The young girl across from her with her headphones often smiled in amusement.
We got to the North Melbourne library which had just completed it's renovations. Emily and I wandered around a bit looking for a book for me. Emily thought I had lost a book and we were finding it "Mom, is this your book?" "Don't worry we'll find it."
We then decided to talk to a librarian since they are usually very helpful people and this librarian certainly was. He had horn-rimmed glasses and a long beard and he thought Emily was hilarious. We needed to get a new library card and he asked me to take a seat and Emily thought that, of course, he was talking to her so she crawled into the seat next to him and he asked her all the questions. She gave him our proof of address and he asked he said "G'day" and she said "G'day Mate!" which he thought was hilarious and his laugh bellowed through the otherwise quiet library. He asked her how old she was and she said "5" and I had to remind her that she was actually "2" despite her desperate wishes to be 5.
We got three stories for Cian - 2 early reader stories including a Star Wars one and "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" for me to read to him. We got three stories for Emily including one by Oliver Jeffars and "Peppa Pig Goes to the Library". She wasn't really interested in Mom finding a book so I grabbed one off the Hot Picks shelf as she was ready to scan them through the self-scanner. I told her it felt like we got 100 books and she said "I love 100 books!" The librarian still totally enamoured with her.
We got back on the tram with all the books in my colossal purse except the Peppa Pig book that Emily carried herself. We got on the tram and read the Peppa Pig book and people around listened to (it's hard not to look at a little person enjoying a children's book). One of the other passengers came over and asked how old Emily was and said she looked exactly like his daughter did at that age and showed us a picture. It was nice to see a young dad come over to chat - usually it's moms and I sometimes wonder if dads are a little uneasy about striking up conversations. As we left the tram I asked Em to say goodbye and everyone in the front half of the tram said "Bye". I feel this might be a glimpse of times to come with her.
We then walked home down the path and an older lady with a small bag of groceries stopped to say hi to her and walked down the path with us for a while. It was fun to chat about the "cold" weather as she was surprised I was in a T-shirt (it was 18 degrees).
The rest of the walk was the usual toddler constant commentary version of life. "That dog touched me." "That dog walked behind me". "Where did that moon come from?" It's fun to see her start to discover her world. She found our lane and ran down the path to tell Dad about the moon and all about her adventure. Her trip to the library was far more exciting than Peppa Pig's.
No comments:
Post a Comment