My kids were counting down the time all morning until we went. When I told them it was finally time to go, they both ran out to our “sexy” mini van and strapped into carseats like pros. They were asking “are we there yet?” with so much glee in their voices, I chuckled while giving them a play by play of how to get there; how much longer the 4 mins drive would take.
You would have thought that we were going to Walt Disney World or some other trip of a lifetime but we weren’t. I had finally received a bill in my name at our new address, so we were finally able to … get a library card! I even got each of them their own library cards for their birthday tomorrow…shh, don’t tell them. 
So, we piled into the car and drove over to the library, where they ran to the front door of the library, I reminded them that they needed to be on their best behaviour, they opened the door and started exploring. Being in a small town now, the main library is smaller than the main library in the city we just moved from but they were happy to see that the relatively large kids section was still filled with books, CDs and DVDs. We introduced ourselves to the librarians and staff, and my daughter told them how excited she was to be there, and then the rest of her and her brother’s life stories, including that they are twins.
Their father and I would take the kids to the farmer’s market and library almost every Saturday of their lives when they were younger, and participate in play groups at the library. As they got older, we weren’t going every week, but we would still go regularly. Even after we split, we both still take them to the library. The library is as important to their father as me…he used to own a bookstore.
I went to the library all the time as a kid, and made my way through the Nancy Drew series as fast as possible. It drove me crazy though when the next book in the series was already checked out because, for some reason, it never occurred to me that I could just skip it and read it when it came back in.
My grandfather who lived in England even had a library card at that library too. He came to visit for 3 weeks every year and would borrow books during his visit too. I have fond memories of coming home from school and he was sitting in “my” chair in the living room, reading a book, and smoking his pipe. To this day, the smell of a pipe reminds me of him, and I smile.
I hope that my kids have fond memories of the library when they grow up, and that they will instill the same love of reading the library in their kids.
