Thursday, May 21, 2009

Never check out anything from the library again

Here's another of the parenting poems I wrote for the PAD Challenge.

Prompt 29: "For today's prompt, I want you to title your poems "Never (blank)" with you filling in the blank with a word or phrase. Then, write a poem based off your title...."


Pile of open books

Never check out anything from the library again

You might as well give up, lame-o.
You’ve once again returned twenty items
of which you paged through two.
You have a baby now,
and reading’s not for you.
It’s gone the way of concerts and plays,
quiet church services where you could hear the sermon,
eating peacefully in a restaurant
without someone swooping your food off your plate
with a clumsily wielded knife,
then screeching to make heads whip around and glare,
and pushing the high chair over
from knee height.
Reading’s not for you,
that careful paging through of paper,
tender paper that tears so easily you’ve found,
covers that get bent and dust jackets ripped off.
And there’s so much to reading,
getting lost in the story,
in a paragraph,
just one damn sentence, please,
and it’s no use,
because he won’t let you now.
The lights are off, anyway,
for hours each day,
as you try to coax a raging monkey-child
to nap or bed,
and assuming there’s light from the blinds,
he tears the book from your hand,
and assuming there’s not,
it’s a moot point in the end.
You keep a mini-library on the back of the toilet,
hoping to read a page while you pee,
but he follows you in,
and the stack grows taller,
until it’s time to return them,
these unused, unread books,
that people who still read
are waiting for.

---

It's true! It's all true!

Photo courtesy sanja gjenero on stock.xchng

5 comments:

Jamie said...

LOVE this! So absolutely TRUE! And sad... who really knew the changes that we would all make when we brought a little life into this world! The saddest part is checking out books on how to get your kid to sleep from the library- when are you supposed to read said books if your child is not sleeping???? Thanks for the funny post!

Anonymous said...

This is the second post this week I've read about a mother who doesn't have time to read anymore. It's funny, too, because I finally got my library card (we moved recently). I'm hopeful.

Lauren Wayne said...

Jamie, that's a hilarious comment about when to read sleeping books! It somehow reminds me how when we first got our cat, all the books I was returning to the library were cat-behavior books with little teeth marks in each corner.

And, edenwild, here's hoping you get lots of reading done! I think I actually got more done when my baby was younger, because he'd sometimes nap out where it was light, and also he'd fall asleep in the car a lot, and I'd end up parking somewhere with him. I always keep a library book (and a flashlight) in the car for just such occasions! :)

But, no, once again, I am scrambling to finish a book that's due today (but I'm determined) and putting another on hold that I've checked out at least 10 times. Someday... At least I can still read online, because that's a lighted screen and short bits of information!

Leanne Franson said...

Oh dear! I hope you get to read now! I adopted my son at 22 mos so didn't have as much problem with some of these things... he always napped well, and when I put him in bed, well, he is in bed even if he isn't sleeping. Sometimes doesn't sleep for 2 hours, but I could still read. But I study Chinese and work instead... I seldom read other books except in little bits in bed at night just before sleeping.

I was curious about this entry since I started going to the library more regularly when I had a kid... ours has a toy/play area, great to hang out on cold wet winter days. And lots of board books... so even tearing little fingers can't ruin them. We still go regularly, though getting books back on time can be a challenge. We have a special place we put library books "up high" and a highlight of the day is always reading some library books... kids' ones!

Leanne Franson said...

ack, that last comment by Leanne, was me, Wenjonggal at http://wenjonggal.wordpress.com I didn't realize I was logged into my google account and not my wordpress one.

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