Yes, Mrs. Librarian, It Was The Kids!

I love the library.  I'll go even farther.  I think it's the greatest thing ever!  You can borrow books, and other things, for free.  It's amazing.  I don't know how I would satisfy my book addiction without it. 

However, I was starting to cringe whenever I heard the automated 'voice' of the library on my phone.  It had graduated to, "You have some items that are very, very overdue."  Not just very, but very very.

I couldn't find the books anywhere.  I had looked high and low.  I had taken every single book off each child's bookcase.  And that took me forever.  We must have almost two hundred children's books altogether, I swear.  (Hmmm.  Maybe I should be using the library more often!)

But this is the thing.  I get all these great books from the library, for me and the kids, and then they just disappear.  I even have a 'designated library book place' for them, away from the kids' rooms, so they don't just fall into some big black hole.  Apparently my four year old daughter disagrees that we need a designated library book place, because they never stay there.

I finally went to the library and threw myself on its mercy.  I told the librarian that I would just have to pay for the two very very overdue books, because I couldn't find them anywhere.  She looked at me as if I was a small child.

I started babbling nervously about how I have three children.  I thought that would have been self-explanatory.  But no.  I don't think she has children.  I mean, what am I saying?  Of course she doesn't!  Otherwise she would understand, right?  She looked at me skeptically.  "One of the books is an adult book," she said frostily.

I looked at her, aghast.  "I have three children who all like to move books around!"  I protested.  "They don't care what kind of book it is!"

Doesn't every child do this?  My children all seem to take particular delight in picking up random items in the household and depositing them in a completely random place.  This happens all the time.  Is it just me?

I've found library books behind couches before.  Why not?  Let's read BEHIND the couch.  Reading ON the couch is so yesterday.  I've found toys in tupperware cupboards and measuring cups in closets.  There is no rhyme or reason!

Anyway, then I went back home and I again tore the house apart, determined to find the books. 

Yes, I found them.  Stuffed into the drawer of an old secretary that we never open and where I most certainly would never have put library books.

That's right...it was the kids. 

Maybe from now on we'll just read the books AT the library and not bring them home at all.  It will be much less stressful.