Telling Stories
The Story Lady at my childhood library was white-haired and gentle. She looked like Mrs. Claus and gathered the kids around her at storytime each week. We all sat quietly in a semi-circle at her feet and looked adoringly upon her for a full thirty minutes, hanging on every word and picture in her many storybooks.
Actually, we probably ran around for fifteen minutes, screaming and hitting each other on the heads with the board books and knocking down the paperback book racks, but that’s not how I remember it.
Storytime at our local library is led by a young and energetic librarian who knows a million kids’ songs and finger games and walks around the room while she reads that week’s book. The kids run around and dance and learn how to jump and play under a parachute and drag out the plastic toy bucket at the end. There are name stickers and hand-stamps and bubbles.
Theo loves it and displays his adoration by applauding and, today, lying down on the floor with his feet crossed while the librarian led the songs. As though he thought it was a personal concert, just for him. I think I love it just as much as he does, because it makes me think of the Story Lady but also (and this is key) because I get my very own nametag sticker every week.
Does the nametag say Theo’s mom or Blythe? That’s the key for me!
That sounds delightful!
However, it also raises my suspicions that our office-wide obsession with nametags may have a perpetrator…
It says Blythe. I agree, that’s a key point.
I am ALL ABOUT THE NAMETAGS. It drastically reduces the number of people who think I’ve said my name is “Life” after I introduce myself.