Counting Your Age In Months...

Because everything is very archaic at my library we still make people come in person and/or call in to register for our programs (God forbid we get an online registration program). So yesterday we started a new batch of sign ups and because it was registration day the phone was ringing off the hook with mothers who wanted to sign their children up for various programs. And when we sign children up for our programs there are three things we want to know...

1. Child's Full Name
2. Child's Age
3. Phone Number

This is so we can make sure you're putting your child in a program that is appropriate for their age range and so we can call if we want to remind people about said program(s) or cancel it for whatever reason. Basic library practices.

So yesterday I'm fielding tons of calls, going through my name-age-number spiel with the mommies and then I get a phone call that wasn't from a rude patron or anything but made my head explode.

I get a mother on the phone who wants to sign her child up for whatever and I bust out the appropriate sheet to write the information on. Ask the name, she tells me, I write it down. Ask the phone number, she rattles it off, I write it down. Ask the age, she said thirty-one months and I just stutter "Um, thirty-one months..." and she replies "Yup, thirty-one months..." I say okay, ask her if she wants to register for anything else, she says no, I tell her to have a nice day and hang up.

WHO SAYS THEIR CHILD IS THIRTY-ONE MONTHS OLD?!!?!!!!!

That child is over two and a half years old, why the hell do you need to refer to it's age in months?!? I don't understand. If I started telling people that I'm three hundred and sixty-four months old they would look at me like I was crazy.

I know this is such a stupid thing to be annoyed with but I think once your child is past eleven months, that they are a year and X months. Why refer to them in months? Who started this month thing? Am I overreacting? Does anyone else think it's ridiculous?

Sorry. I needed to rant about this. I'll end my rant here.