(With my website under construction until very recently, I didn’t have time to write a new blog for the first half of August. But this earlier piece, written for my 2016 Otterbein creative writing class, is both fun and bittersweet, since both Naomi and Alek are now too old for story time at Bookingham Forest.)
Going to Bookingham Forest is an adventure that begins even before we are out of the garage. It’s a challenging adventure that starts with strapping two preschoolers into my car’s child-safety seats. (These seats may safeguard the lives of kids but they definitely jeopardize the sanity of adults.) Then come the demands, one following the other like bullets out of a machine gun.
“I want a snack.”
“I want a book.”
“I want a toy.”
“I want a game.”
Then come the critiques.
“I don’t like this snack.”
“I don’t like this book.”
“I don’t like this toy.”
“I don’t like this game.”
These complain — I mean, critiques are either ignored or partially accommodated and soon we are on our way. Four minutes later we are in the Olde Worthington Library parking lot where other parents and grandparents are unloading their preschool children and trekking toward the library’s entrance. We walk, jump, skip, stumble, hop, and pirouette in the same direction. Four-year-old Naomi pushes the automatic door opener several times to let us in. The silvery circular opener has the image of a wheelchair on it, and though none of us is in such a device, I feel no guilt in allowing Naomi to push it. After all, no rational person would dispute that a 66-year-old man trying to manage a four-year-old and a two-year-old is handicapped.
Once in the library, we quickly make our way to Bookingham Forest’s entrance, which is marked by a make-believe-tree with Tigger (of Winnie-the-Pooh fame) hiding in its branches. As we move toward the forest’s reading room, I do my best to keep Naomi away from the child-oriented iPads just a few feet from the room’s threshold, but I don’t succeed. We are a few minutes early, so I allow her to move letters and numbers around and set up her own on-screen household. But when Miss Karen, the library’s primary storyteller, gathers up her books, I intervene.
“Naomi, it’s time to go. You can play on the computers once baby time is over.”
She plops the earphones onto the table and heads into the reading room where her younger brother Alek is staring at other children — most younger than he — who are gathering around him. Most of the children are tightly controlled by one or more adults, but a few run free, pulling books off shelves and hiding behind the easel that holds Miss Karen’s felt board.
As I enter and grab Alek, I marvel, as I often do, at the imagination that went into making this place. Behind me at the door is a three-foot-figure of Arthur the Aardvark with the “word of the day” (rain) hanging from his neck. On the room’s west side, a castle complete with sturdy-looking “stone” walls looms above the growing crowd. A droopy-eyed green dragon gazes out of one castle tower; a long-eared dog prepares to leap out of another. Below them, a regally-robed mouse wields an Excalibur-like sword. To the mouse’s left, a rolled-up carpet looks as if it could fly if given the chance.
On the room’s east side, a painted-on forest with branches that extend out into the room provides a home for several birds and a big-eyed owl. Beneath the branches, a scene unfolds from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. It shows Mr. Toad and his motorcar stuck in a muddy pond, his unwilling passengers scattered in awkward poses around the vehicle. At the rear of the room, a white button will create chirping-cricket sounds. It has wisely been temporarily deactivated.
There are several bluish-gray benches as well as a soft-cushioned rocking chair available, but today we decide to sit on the alphabet carpet. I settle myself on the U for Umbrella square with Alek on my lap. Naomi sits on J for Jack-in-the-Box with her legs extending into K for Kite.
Miss Karen makes her entrance and welcomes everyone. She asks if anyone is here for the first time. Two or three hands go up, so Miss Karen briefly explains what the purpose of baby time is, what will happen over the next 15 minutes, and what parents can do at home to reinforce what children learn here. So now the program truly begins.
We start with “Skinnamarink.” Having participated in this program 100 times or more with five of my six grandchildren, I know every word, every motion, and every gesture as if I’d written and choreographed the whole song myself. But of all my grandchildren, Alek is the one least enamored of baby time. I keep him in line through “This is the Way the Ladies Ride” (he likes being hoisted up during the cowboy phase), but then he begins to wiggle and squirm. Since Miss Karen does mind some wandering around from her listeners, I allow him to move away from me. He pulls a book off the shelf and returns to my side but is soon up and moving around again. More books are pulled off of shelves and deposited on top of the L for Lion square. In the meantime, Naomi has joined Miss Karen at the front of the room and is “assisting” her with songs and stories.
Except for “Humpty Dumpty,” which gives him the pleasure of being “dropped” on the floor, Alek is up and about. At one point, he pauses to listen to Miss Karen read Where’s My Puppy, but then quickly resumes his book-collecting efforts. I watch him carefully and when he starts to poke at the library’s DVD player, I intervene, bringing him back to my side and keeping him there. Luckily, we are now at the end of the program when Miss Karen blows bubbles for the toddlers to watch and grab. Again, I allow Alek some leeway while doing my best to assure his hand swings at bubbles do not land on another child’s face.
Soon, all the bubbles are dispatched, and true to my word, I allow Naomi a few minutes to play with an iPad while I pick up the books Alek has procured. Sometimes I will check out a book if Alek seems genuinely interested in it, but most of the time I return them to the shelves or to a librarian.
The day goes by quickly after our return from Bookingham Forest. There’s lunch around 11:15, followed by a few light chores (such as feeding the birds) and then it’s time to take them home to my daughter. Once I’m back at my own house, I usually take a nap.
I can’t say it’s easy taking care of two small children. The energy and drive I had as a parent is not always there as a grandparent. But I would not for a moment give up our time together at Bookingham Forest or anywhere else. Because someday, the library, the forest, baby time, the alphabet carpet, Arthur the Aardvark, and “Skinnamarink” will be part of a past I can never return to.