I wanna be a homebody

God damn it I don’t want to go anymore, why do we ever even try to go places? That’s how it feels on pretty much every family outing by the time we get out the stupid door in the first place. Especially in the winter. Winter ups the annoyance of leaving the house, and this winter in particular, because it’s so painfully cold. It also makes the process so much more of a pain in the ass. Winter coat. Winter hat. Mittens. Make sure everyone’s got socks on. Boots. This means keeping track of everything, which means when we get home everything has to go back where it belongs. And of course my kid has taste and likes variation in what she wears - not THAT hat THIS time, I want a DIFFERENT hat THIS time. Of course. What hat do you want? Oh, the one we can’t find? Of course. And we can’t find it because it didn’t get put away last time, because we piled in the house took all our stuff off and took a deep breath at having survived the damn outing. Oh yeah, did you need to pee before we go? Why don’t you try? Please? Just try? It will be awful if we get stuck somewhere and you have to go - it’s too cold to pee outside. Come on … great, thanks for trying, let’s get your stuff back on. Now I’ll get the baby dressed, who will flail and cry through every step of the way. We’re set, I just need to get my coat and hat and gloves and boots and the baby’s crying again, could it be that - let me check - yeah, she needs a new diaper. Peel the baby out of her winter clothes, change her, stuff her hollering bucking little body back into the winter gear, sweating now because I didn’t take my coat off and the older kid’s pissed now because This. Is. Taking. Too. Long. You’re telling me. Except to be fair sometimes she’s very independent. So she’s started playing with something and now I’m interrupting her because it is finally time to go and she likes being interrupted even less than I do, and she has worse manners than I do so she lets me know exactly what she thinks. But anyway finally lets go, everyone’s ready except god damn it why did I have that second cup of coffee I totally need to go to the bathroom now oh fuck it I’ll just hold it, there’s a bathroom at the library let’s just go already jesus fucking christ why do we ever leave the damn house during our six months of winter?

On the walk to the car I tell myself that this is supposed to be fun and then I tell myself to fuck off because what something’s supposed to be doesn’t mean it actually is that and it’s just true that this is not fun so quit telling me it’s supposed to be fun. Okay, I placate myself, you’re right, this is annoying, you feel annoyed. God damn right I do. You feel annoyed because it’s a lot of work to get out the door in winter with two kids. Yes. That sounds frustrating it. It is. I’m cooling down now. I remember that this is basically every outing ever, and that once we get there we will genuinely have a nice time, and we do.

My kid says hi to the librarian that she knows and likes. She picks books to read. She reads most of one (she’s learning to read), she asks for help on a few parts but otherwise reads it. I read her some other books. She plays with the toy kitchen they have set up, “this is french food, it’s calls sure-fur-ver-sure-fern-sha-sha, it has eggs and cheese and tomato and onion. You should try it.” It’s delicious, I pretend. The baby gets another cat nap, which she needs. I browse for books, and the more time we hang out here the more I like books for fun again, the more my intellectual and creative curiosity comes back. My wife browses for books while I hold the baby, sleeping and snuggly, it’s cozy and I feel like a good husband helping my wife get a bit of a break, and I’m excited because she always gets interesting stuff to read and she tells me the best bits (she read a book recently on the history of English spelling and the excerpts she read to me and summarized were totally fascinating). Then the baby wakes up, sleepy and still snuggling, until she wants down. Once down she cruises along the shelves, laughs as she bangs toy fruit together with toy cars, and gets right in the mix of playing with the other bigger kids. Another parent we see at story time is here with her kids, we chat a bit. Parenting’s fun again, this is great, we live so close to the library, why don’t we hang out here every day? “Attention library patrons,” they announce over the intercom, “we are closing in thirty minutes.” I gather our books, “sweetie do you want to help me check these out, you want to use the computer?” “No.” She’s busy with her cooking. “Okay. I’m going to go check these out then. Stay in the children’s area.” “Wait,” she drops the tiny metal frying pan full of sure-fur-ver-sure-fern-sha-sha, plastic apples and waffles and zucchini clatter all over, “I do want to.” “Okay great, and when we get back we’re going to pick these up -“ she’s already sprinted to the checkout computer. “Don’t run at the library!” Way too late, if she even heard me. I hand her my library card, “I want my card!” “Yours is full right now, we need to use mine.” “Okay.” I’m glad she doesn’t fight me on this. She scans my card. Beep. She holds each book under the red light, beep beep beep beep through the stack. She pushes the touchscreen asking for a receipt, she loves receipts, she tears it off when it prints, sticks it in a book and sprints “wait don’t run!” back to the children’s area. I carry our books over and the intercom again “Attention library patrons,” wait, really, already? Where did the time go? “We are closing in fifteen minutes. Please check out your items now.” Ahead of the game there but we really need to start getting dressed.

And it’s the same motherfucking battle again and wait I haven’t gone pee yet. I rush to the bathroom and back to the kid’s area and it’s mittens hat coat boots hat gloves coat hat baby snowsuit pack the books in our bag and ah christ again?! at least the baby’s well hydrated, un-snowsuit the baby again, diaper change, re-snowsuit her and now the older kid’s pissed because wait there are more books I wanted but “Attention, the library is now closed” so it’s carrying the kid shouting under my arm to the car and why do we ever leave our stupid house in the damn winter?