I took all five kids to the library this morning to sign up for the summer reading program (I usually hate these things but delusionally fell off the wagon this summer) to pick out books and play. The verdict is still out but I think I survived.

I knew it was not going to be the easiest trip when our 4yo announced that he could not wait to go get a new prize from the treasure chest. The treasure chest (hereunto known as TC) is where prizes are given after each hour of reading one does. We hasn't even signed up much less logged reading. Nothing could dissuade him, though. He even suggested we just stay at the library long enough to read for an hour straight so we wouldn't have to go home empty handed (because leaving with books apparently qualifies as empty handed).

But he did ok once settled in. He only freaked out once when some rogue 3 year old tried to snap a fake picture of him with her fake camera and he ran off sulking. When approached he said "I don't want to talk about it". Ok.

Then his eye caught a tiny palm-sized shaggy dog complete with tiara and jewel-encrusted necklace. He was allowed to play with this special item but eventually asked me to remove it from his sight because looked at it made him feel very sad. Ok, again. Nothing like library before lunch!

Removing the dog wasn't good enough, after all. Apparently he couldn't get it out of his mind. I know this because he kept saying, more and more loudly, "I can't get it out of my mind!". At one point he declared in the melodramatic way only a 4 year old can muster "Anything white reminds me of the dog!" as he stared miserably at the expansive white ceiling in the library. I only had to tell him to hush once when he screamed in the middle of the library at the top of his lungs. So I think that makes this visit an all-around success. Plus I only lost a few kids a few times! Definitely success!

We got way too many books. I wasn't even offended when I was asked to pay my fine (.90 - an all time record low, thankyouverymuch) and offered a library magnet for free that says "My books are due back today...." with an error pointing to the receipt I'm supposed to stick under the new magnet on my refrigerator :-)

In other news the jackhammer friends have not paid us a repeat visit. This might seem like good news for my sanity but it is bad news for my laziness as our driveway has been blocked off for 3 days now. So we did what any patient law-abiding desperate citizen would do and pushed over the blockades and drove over the whole thing into our driveway! Hurray!

After the bigger boys' work was done, they asked if they could ride bikes to the local ice cream parlor and off they went. A half hour later some weird torrential storm blew through. And when I say blew, I mean gale-force winds with hail and rain so intense that you would think you were in the middle of a hurricane if you didn't know you were smack in the center of Michigan. Thankfully the boys made it home just before the eye of the storm hit otherwise they'd be in Oz right about now.

And it's only 4pm! This is going to be quite an interesting summer!