I am embarrassed to admit this, but I had not taken my 2-year-old to the Charlotte Library until this past Sunday. With all my Christmas shopping done, we had a few hours open on Sunday afternoon, it was a pretty cold day to be outside so we headed over to the Public Library in Morrocroft instead, they were open til 6pm. Free Fun! (This is key when you are near-broke from the holidays, ha!). The children’s section is on the left side. In the back of it they have a play area with chairs, stuffed animals, dress-up clothes and of course all the books you can handle! They have many little kids books in bins so you do not have to worry about the kids tearing them off the shelves. For Claire, it was like Disneyland. They also had a cardboard “house” that she would not get out of! Except for 2 kids that came and left, we had the whole area to ourselves. I perused the shelves while Claire dressed up and read, then we read books together. She would not let go of the life-sized Curious George doll (see photo). The library even bundles some groups of books for different age groups so you can just grab a few and go, now THAT is service! There is a nice lady that can help you if you need the name of an author and they have cards that list suggested books for every age group.
The bathroom at this location has a diaper changing station AND a stool for kids to wash hands (every place should have this!).
An added bonus of the library is the ability to “road test” books. Such as, I loved the Madeline books when I was little. I tried to read one to Claire at the library and she had no interest, probably to young. You never know what kids are going to like and it’s much easier to go through all their “phases” when you are not shelling out cash for new books. We’re in a Curious George phase this week.
We picked out 5 books to bring home. Next time I will bring a bag to carry them home in. Claire already had a library card (yes, little ones can have a card!), we got it at daycare nearly 2 years ago. The library has self-check out (new in 2007) and they give you a receipt. I saved it and stuck it on my fridge so I have a reminder of when I need to bring them back and which books I got – you can renew online too AND you can return books to any library location! So my biggest issue was just getting Claire out of the library, she ran away and we nearly had timeout right there in the library. This is when I wanted a bag for the books so I could scoop her up but with my full hands and her extra layers (it was COLD today) I could not get a good grip. Ug! A nearly perfect trip, so close.
The only library bummer for me is that most of the good baby and toddler storytimes and activities are during the week in the daytime so that does not work for working moms but they do have some weekend activities. Jen P will be talking about the library WEEKDAY activities tomorrow so be sure to tune in!
Where is the library in your area? Click here to see, and on the map click on any location for details! From Myers Park to Ballantyne to the Lake or University and everywhere in between there are locations. Evey library has it’s own page in the site with all the activities. For instance, here is the Morrocroft page. We’ll be talking about Imaginon in a future post (it’s so big it gets it’s own article!)
Tell us about your visits to the library! Which is your favorite library?
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