No more "storytime"

Everyone is in school, except N. As with the 3 previous, I started trying to find out when was storytime at the library and Barnes & Noble and Borders. 10:30 at the bookstore. I could go right after dropping J off to school. I thought about it - drop him off, strap N back in her carseat, drive to the mall, carry her thru to the bookstore, wade thru the sea of nannies, strollers, and little kids to find a seat, sit 5 minutes as the bookstore lady starts to read a story and N loses interest, gets up and wanders thru the rows of books, gets pushed by some kid whose nanny is busy chatting, I'd have to reprimand the little kid as N snatches a book from another kid, then she'll cry as I fuss at her, I'll have to buy her some noisy press button book and then a cookie from the coffee bar to get out of the store without her screaming, strap her back into the carseat, and rush back to school to pick J up.

That's when my slacker mom tendencies kicked in. After we took J to school, I turned around and returned home. She pushed a truck on the floor while I cleaned up from breakfast, she scribbled on some paper while I checked e-mail, we stacked up some blocks and kicked them over (again! again!), she banged on the piano keys while I practiced my chord exercises, we took some books off the shelf (she knows that the last page of the Eric Carle books are the best pages and just flips to the end to push the button or watch the flashing lights), ate a cheese stick and some crackers, then went and picked J up from school.

This worked out so much better than the bookstore Storytime.