Day: June 27, 2005

I don’t like who I am when I am furious with my kids. I don’t like feeling like I’ve mistreated them. I think it’s the closest I ever really come to hating myself.

Taking kids to the library is on my mental list of “Things Good Mommies Do” so I try to do it regularly. It is almost always a frustrating and engrumpifying trip for me. I have mental standards for appropriate behavior in the library, but it is impossible for me to actually enforce them on both Gleek and Patches simultaneously. And every moment spent enforcing appropriate behavior is not spent selecting materials to take home or checking books out, which is the reason I went to the library anyway. I don’t get to help Kiki or Link select books. I don’t get to select books for myself. In fact I don’t really “select” books at all. I tend to snatch a few picture books from the handiest shelf and hope they have good bedtime stories in them.

Today herded my children through the library only to be rewarded with a Patches tantrum serenading me all the way home. Then upon arrival I needed a simple response from Gleek which she actively avoided giving until I was screaminly furious. Going to the library was a highlight in my childhood. It is supposed to be a good and happy thing. Instead I’m increasingly convinced that family trips to the library are a bad idea and I cringe at the thought of using up child care options for a library trip. Willing child care is always a scarce resource. It makes me want to cry.