Bilingual Story Time...

So I was just doing one of my weekly story times and I had these two siblings in the class, they used to live in the area but moved to Peru and are back visiting for the summer, and they made my story time that much more amusing. Both children are bilingual (I know this for a fact) and the little girl was speaking to me in English the whole time, while her little brother would only answer me in Spanish. No matter what I said she'd answer in English and he'd answer in Spanish. It was too funny (I don't think it would have been if "Julia" or someone else was doing the classes, but since I speak bad Spanish it was to me).

At one point another boy started to talk in English to the boy and he would respond in Spanish, but the two were totally having a conversation. It was just amazing to watch for me, the other kids were confused I think.

Once I was done reading all of the stories it was time to do the craft and I could not get the girl's brother to come color. I actually had to walk up to her and say "¿Cómo se dice color?" because I could not think of the word for the life of me. She looked up and said "Pinta..." I walked over to him and was just like "Ven aqui... Pinta..." He laughed at me and said no. I gave up.

After story time was over I was telling the mother how her children did and how one spoke English and the other Spanish. She just looked at me and sighed. She started telling me that her son refuses to speak in English even though he understands. She asked me to go over and speak to him to see if he would switch languages, but he didn't. I told her that I understand Spanish a good chunk of the time and only answer in English, that kinda made her feel better.

But yeah, it was an interesting story time. I hardly ever have to try and speak Spanish at work, especially not to children. Lets see what happens next week.

Getting My Craft On...

Since my library still isn't open to the public and I'm doing various odd tasks or whatever you'd like to call them, I decided yesterday that I was going to make a bunch of craft demos for story times I'd like to do when we are once again open for business or as an outreach type program. And since I think my crafts are pretty flipping cute I decided to share them all with you (Exciting, I know), so maybe you can get inspired to be a little crafty today.

I found some version of all of the crafts above on Pinterest, so if you're interested in instructions you can find them if you click on my "Crafts For The Library" board.

On a side note, I know I haven't been the most exciting person as of late (I mean, aside from possibly breaking stuff and needing stitches) but I have a few interesting things coming up next week that I can't wait to share with all of you! I hope you're all out there doing wonderful things!

It's Okay...

It's Okay...
♥ To buy a new outfit for every occasion that pops up (i.e. - Bar hopping in NYC, bachelorette parties, etc)
♥ I wish it was Friday after 5PM so I can go hang out with "Favorite Page #1"
♥ To not be happy about having to do a storytime in a weird location
♥ To yell sometimes
♥ To sleep in until almost 12PM on a Sunday
♥ To not want to ask a coworker if they want to order lunch because you hate them
♥ To hate having to listen to voicemails
♥ Wishing that the winter was over and it was summer time
♥ To spend $100+ on a tanning salon package
♥ Only checking Facebook when an alert pops up about "important" people you stalk comes up
♥ To do linkup posts while at work

Photo An Hour: Saturday Librarian Edition...

Here's my day hourly in photos...

9:00AM
Breakfast. Dunkin Donuts hash browns and iced coffee. Justin actually surprised me and was at the library as I was walking in and he gave me a bagel from Panera because he bought them to go his mother's house.

10:00AM
Half of my iced coffee left and no one in the room.

11:00AM
The storytime basket my Department Head put together for me to use for the storytime we are doing for a local church. The church lady picked out the theme socks, I'm just going with it.

12:00PM
My mother threw away some food I made the other day that I was going to eat for lunch today, so she took me out for pizza and to walk around town before I had to head back to the library.

1:00PM
A blog post I was working on that will be up way before this will be today.

2:00PM
Sorting through the letter that I had on one of our bulletin boards to put them away.

3:00PM
I started to get a headache. I think it's because it's going to rain.

4:00PM
Just walking around the department.

5:00PM
Time to punch out!

Pretending To Be A Librarian...

Right before I went to do storytime this afternoon, one of the mothers of a child that attends came up to me and told me that her 4-year-old daughter pretends to be me when she goes home. Her mother was telling me that she tells everyone to sit on their mats, holds picture books like I do, pretends to read, asks them about the stories and says "Isn't that silly!" (I say that a lot to the kids). It was so cute. Who would have thought someone would want to pretend to be me?!

Week In Instagram: June 10th-16th

Messy Kiddies...

I just got back from doing storytime at one of the local elementary schools to find "Favorite Page #1" on the floor in the picture book room picking up a pile of books off the floor. Apparently one of the kids walked up to one of the shelving units just after she had put books away in that exact section and knocked a bunch of the books off of two of the shelves. As she went to pick them up a mother looked over and said something along the line of "Oh my... Whose child did that?" and walked away. We're pretty sure it was her kid that did it and instead of apologizing for what her kid did she pretended like nothing happened. Gotta love people.

Late Storytime...

I'm kinda of irritated. I had a mother come fifteen minutes after storytime should have started and she asked me if I minded reading to her son even though they came late. Seeing as I'm a nice person, I said sure and lugged the storytime basket, crayons, etc into the program room for a one on one storytime. Her son did not want to listen or do the craft that we had planned for tonight. What was the point of doing that to me? Why did this woman drag her hungry, impatient child out in the rain to come late to my storytime? I don't understand...

Return Of Stalker #1...

"Stalker #1" is back lurking around the library. I just found him creeping around the room I have storytime in. I walked out with my kids after I finished and he came following after me telling me he needs to talk. I lied and told him that I didn't have time to deal with him right now because I had a bunch of things to do. This prompted him to ask me when he could talk to me blah blah blah blah blah. I told him tomorrow and I plan on not being around.

Once I got him to go away I went up to the reference desk where "Emily" was sitting and she told me that a young gentleman was looking for me. I told her that he is one of my stalkers and she proceeded to tell me that he has been trying to find me for the past couple of days.

I just told "Leslie" about it and she is telling me that I need to inform our Director about it because she doesn't know what he is capable of and he is a weirdo. Now I'm super creeped out especially since he knows what my car looks like (See: My Stalker Knows What My Car Looks Like...) I'm totally making the security guard walk me to my car tonight.

Storytime: Thanksgiving...

I decided that whenever I create a new storytime that I'll post the theme, craft, books, etc. for anyone interested. If you've done a similar topic or whatever leave me some feed back. I'd really appreciate it.

Theme: Thanksgiving

Books:

• "Cranberry Thanksgiving" by Wende and Harry Devlín
• "One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims" by B.G. Hennessy
  
• "Thank You, Thanksgiving" by David Milgrim
  
• "Thanksgiving at the Tappletons'" by Eileen Spinelli
• "Thanksgiving Day" by Anne Rockwell
• "This is the Turkey" by Abby Levine
  
• "This is Thanksgiving" by Harriet Ziefert
• "Turk and Runt" by Lisa Wheeler

Craft: Turkey hat

• Paper plates • Colored paper • Googly eyes • Scissors • Glue •

365 Days Of Pictures: Day 247...

This is the Thanksgiving craft the kiddies are gonna do during my upcoming storytime.

Another Visitor...

"Favorite Page #1" surprised me and came to visit me today! I came out of my storytime to find her sitting at my desk waiting for me. She didn't stay very long because she has things to do with her family, but I was really happy that she came to see me. While she was here I gave her all of the books that I was planning on mailing out to her later on today and we made plans to go into NYC when she comes back for her break at the end of October -- Obviously we're gonna spend that day getting tea at Alice's Tea Cup and wander around the city. I can't wait!

Black Pigs...

On Thursday during the craft portion of my storytime I had the children coloring pigs and I had one little girl who started to color her pig in black. As she was coloring it she kept saying that she was coloring it in black because "Black is the color of bad guys" and that the pig was a bully -- She also said that "Black is the color of bullies" and that "Black was a bad color" and that "Bullies are only black". I was kind of in shock because she kept saying it and the other kids were starting to repeat what she was saying. I told her and the other kids that black wasn't a bully color, it was just a normal color like all of the other in the crayon box.

When I was done with storytime her nanny swept her away so I didn't have a chance to say anything. I told my Department Head, who couldn't believe what the child had been saying. I had never seen this child before so I don't know if she is being bullied by someone or if her parents are teaching her to be racist. I kind of hope I don't have to deal with her again.

Caution Wet Floor...

Today while I was doing my regular Thursday afternoon storytime I had one of the little boys that I've known forever tell me he had to go to the bathroom. I told him to wait one second and I went to the phone to call his babysitter, I went back to him to tell him I had called and he peed himself -- There was like a puddle of urine on the floor. I have never had this happen before, so I had a mini internal freak out because it just so happen to occur in the hour when we don't have a custodian in the building (The day custodian leaves at 4:00pm and the night custodian comes in at 5:00pm). I had no idea what to do, so I called the Director. He ran down to the room I was in with a mop and cleaned up the floor while I rounded the other storytime kids up and brought them back to their parents.

Once everything was cleaned up I went back into the office, told the woman and asked each of them if they have ever had that happen before. "Amy" said she has a kid do it once last year, "Julia" said once also and my Department Head said in her twenty years as a Childrens Librarian that she has never had it happen before. I really hope that this was my first and last with this at work.

Pasta...

I had the pleasure of spending this fine Friday dying various shapes of pasta with vinegar and food coloring. This is literately what I did all day until it was time for me to set up for Drawing Club and do the program with the kids.

As you can probably guess, I was in my glory -- I got to play with food coloring and make the office reek of vinegar, which kept that bitch "Sarah" out of the office.

So you're probably asking yourselves why I actually did all of this... Well I decided the other day that I wanted to do a pasta themed storytime with the kids and dying the pasta, then creating pasta necklaces was the craft that "Favorite Volunteer #2" found for me. When I string it up and make the craft demo I'll post a picture.

Pasta Storytime Books

• "Noodles" by Sarah Weeks & David A. Carter
• "On Top of Spaghetti" by Paul Brett Johnson
• "Everybody Brings Noodles" by Norah Dooley
• "The Spaghetti Party" by Doris Orgel
• "Noodle Man" by April Pulley Sayre
• "More Spaghetti, I Say!" by Rita Golden Gelman
• "Pino and the Signora's Pasta" by Janet Pedersen
• "Spaghetti and Meatballs for All!" by Marilyn Burns

Bookless Bitchy Thursday...

The minute I walked in today I was bombarded by bullshit. I didn't even get my coat off before it started. First it was a one of the kid's mothers annoying me because she and the other mothers think that everything should be handed to them. In my chaotic December I forgot to call them to tell them there was a bunch of copies of the January Boy's Book Club book in, so none of them though to call or come in to check on the status of the books. She was trying to convince me to push back the meeting a few weeks -- That ain't happening.

After I get her to go away and I head back for my desk "Julia" walks into the office to ask me how we are working out our dinner breaks because she was working until 7:00pm and she had to go to a meeting. She was complaining at 1:05pm that she was already feeling hungry. I wanted to tell her to go to hell and pick something up before she went to her stupid meeting.

When she left I was stuck alone with "Sarah" for four hours. I refused to talk to her the entire time and just ordered books. I answered a bunch of chaotic phone calls from program providers and people looking for our monthly stats. I was pissed at my Department Head for working a half day.

Around 4:10pm on of my other coworkers calls me freaking out telling me that she is lost in an area that I am semi-familiar with. So, I ended up starting my storytime late because I was guiding her to her destination -- Thank God for the internet and online maps. Once I was done with my ten kid storytime, I was scheduled to go straight to dinner but "Julia" was late. So I waited forever and a year to get my hour break. My break was peaceful, but the rest of my evening was spent yelling at teens. I was so happy when 9:00pm rolled around.