I feel really embarrassed to admit this, but I hardly ever take the kids to the library. It’s because I find library visits to be incredibly tense.

I know, it’s a quiet, peaceful place, right? Shouldn’t be stressful, right?

The problem is that my kids, who are normally so sweet and well behaved, have no sense of library etiquette. They get overwhelmed with excitement at seeing so many books at eye level and they can’t control themselves. They start pulling books off the shelves with both hands and the next thing I know, I’m sitting in a chair that supports perhaps one third of my rear end, surrounded by a pile of a hundred books, which is growing every second. And half of them are French, so I can’t read them anyway. I start freaking out about the huge mess that they are making, and I start hissing at them to Cut. It. Out.

Plus they are completely unable to keep their voices down, and that makes me super tense too. They just can’t seem to understand that the library is not a place for yelling, or running, or squealing, or making funny voices. It’s NOT GOOD.

PLUS, I’m usually interested in browsing for a few key titles myself, and I always get sucked into the bad, bad idea of trying to look at the shelves with one eye, while using the other eye to try to watch three other kids. All the stuff that I’m actually interested in checking out is usually already gone, though, so I get upset that there’s never anything good at the library.

Eventually I’m angry and trying to look for books while hissing at the kids to BE QUIET and removing a book from the baby’s mouth while simultaneously trying to reshelve the hundreds of titles the kids have already pulled from the stacks.

In short, it is not exactly a recipe for fun.

I know this is a chicken-and-egg situation — if I never take the kids to the library, they’ll never learn how to act properly there, but I never take them because they don’t act properly there. Alas.

It doesn’t help that I find visiting the Indigo to be a pure delight. The kids are free to talk loudly because no one is trying to study or work. They can run around in the open aisles of the kids section. I’m not usually interested in buying anything, so instead of trying to do my own shopping or browsing, I’m content to just sit at a table and read the books that the kids select and bring to me. I don’t worry as much about the mess because it’s a store, and having items for sale out on display is almost as good as having them on the shelf.

There’s mirrors and toys to keep the baby interested. The Captain usually makes a stop at the train table for old time’s sake. Gal Smiley loves to play with the puppets they have there and to try on the costumes they sell. They even have Dora computer games.

It’s not just a store…it’s a destination.

PLUS, there’s nothing I like to buy more than paper products, books in particular. So when we discover a title we really, really love…I can bring it home with us. And if there’s a specific title I wanted to read…they usually have it. Multiple copies of it. Available for reading or for taking home, if we want.

I feel like something is wrong with the fact that I prefer to visit a store than a library. Doesn’t that seem wrong to you? Shouldn’t I be teaching my kids something better, something about the horrors of big business and the subtle corruption of marketing and the good of publicly available knowledge?

I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it all out. In the meantime, the Indigo beckons.