Other library mishaps

I mentioned in the "emergency" post about other library incidents that have put Max and I on a particular librarian's Watch List.

First, let me say that our library has an entire wing dedicated to little kids -- this is not the NY Public Library in all of is austerity. There is a puppet show theater, animal-print rubber mats for story time, kid-level book bins, stuffed toys, etc. Second, there are two kid-area librarians: the nice older lady (who has children of her own) and the young bitchy zealot (obviously, no kids). The older lady is patient, loves the little ones, doesn't mind if they crawl around during the stories, sits on the floor with them, etc. The young one insists on kids IN LAPS during stories, sits on a chair above them, tells parents to leave the room if their child fusses, etc. I think you get the picture.

I've tried to schedule our library visits around when the older lady is working, but they seem to have random story time duties.

Anyhoo, the first incident involved me taking a few digital pictures with my camera during story time (holding the camera at arm's length, taking pix of Max clapping to a song while sitting on my lap). She (the young zealot) stopped the song and asked me to stop taking pictures. "Sure, no problem," I said. Afterwards, she tracked me down in the library to let me know there were federal privacy laws governing taking photographs on library property. I've never heard of such, but if it's true (anybody out there know about this?) I'm cool with it. However, there is no sign anywhere saying that photography is not allowed in the library.

The second incident, which is so much less forgivable, involved Max directly. He was watching some older kids doing a puppet show (with me sitting two feet away) and got overly excited, flipping himself over backwards and hitting his head on the floor. He started crying...I picked him up and started walking out of the library to calm him down. As I walked by the librarian desk (in the KIDS area), the young librarian shushed us and said "quiet in the library!" Rrrright. For the rest of day, I hoped some little kid would throw up on her shoes.

I'm thinking the "adult non-fiction" stacks might be a better fit for her. Ya think?

What is your emergency?

Max likes to play with the phones. Today, while at the library lap-sit story time, I let him play with my cell phone (keypad locked) to keep him quiet through a rather dull book. Just as the librarian (who doesn't like us to begin with, but that's another story) was moving on to "Is Your Mamma a Lama?", I heard coming from my phone "Longmont 911, what is your emergency?"

Startled, I quickly grabbed the phone and hung up. As you would expect, the 911 operator called back immediately: "This cell phone just called 911, is there an emergency?" So, disrupting story time and drawing the librarian's very librarian-y disapproving look, I said I was very sorry for the call, "there is no emergency here other than having a one-year-old," and again, sorry, sorry, sorry!

The other moms laughed (not so much the librarian), then I got a talking to by the 911 operator about letting children play with phones. Apparently, there is a security feature on cell phones that if you press the "call" key long enough, even if the keypad is locked, the phone dials 911. Um, good to know.

I think we'll skip story time for a while. One more incident and we'll get banned for life...or maybe just until Max is in kindergarten.