Mommy’s little library rules & a very special find

I took the Peanut to the library the other morning for the first time in quite a while. From her level of excitement you'd think we were heading to Disney World. I had a few things I wanted to pick up for myself but I promised my little lady we'd go to the kids' section and she could bring home three books. 

When we stepped into the children's aisles, I knew we were going to have a problem. The Peanut was nearly overcome by her options and wanted to grab everything in site to put into her little library bag. Completely on the fly I established a trio of sanity-saving library rules:

1. I reiterated the "only three books" rule.

2. Only one "character" book is allowed (i.e. Max & Ruby, Clifford, Berenstein Bears, any television based spin-off, you get the idea.)

3. Mommy gets to pick 1 of the 3 choices and has total veto power over the other 2 that she uses with as much restraint as possible.

I was actually a little shocked how well these library rules worked out for us. The three books we brought home included a standard Clifford book, a random dragon rhyming book the Peanut chose that had us both laughing, and the absolute best pick of the three, Mom's choice: "Fanny" by Holly Hobbie.

The Peanut is a huge fan of "Toot and Puddle" by Holly Hobbie. We've read all the books, watched every tv episode, own the Christmas movie. The Peanut even went as "Puds" for Halloween 2 years ago. So mine was an educated guess. "Fanny" just looked sweet and I trusted the author.

Little did I know what the plot contained. One read-through with the Peanut and I was in tears. The story alone would have tugged at my heart strings but it was the Peanut's reaction that pushed me over the edge. 

Without spoiling too much of the sweet plot, Fanny is a creative little girl who sews up something special only to be made fun of by her two best friends for having something homemade vs. store bought. The Peanut's reaction was to make a little gasp and turn to me and say, "But you make everything special for me!" She just couldn't figure out why the little girls reacted poorly to Fanny's special creation. 

It meant the world to me to get a glimpse of just how much my little homemade items obviously mean to the Peanut. It was one of the most rewarding mommy moments I've had in ages. I'm also so very proud of her for having such a positive attitude towards creating things. I'm hoping to help encourage those same thoughts in the years to come.