Brad and I took Benjamin to his first Mother Goose Time at the library this morning. That is what our library calls the “story time” for babies age 0-12 months. It wasn’t quite what we expected, mainly because of the low attendance. The librarian who led the nearly private time of stories and songs said that not many people have been coming. Hopefully attendance will increase, because Benjamin seemed to enjoy himself, so I’d hate for it to be cancelled.
Those of you without kids may be wondering what a baby can get out of a story time. That’s what I used to think. But, it’s actually designed to be interesting to babies. So rather than stories, it’s mostly singing songs, doing hand and body motions, and looking at different shapes and colors. Very low key, very short (20 minutes), but a nice change of pace from all the same old activities at home.
Benjamin had two favorite parts. One was touching a red fire truck shape made of construction paper. Well, touching is an understatement. He basically crushed it in his hand. (The librarian had said they have plenty of shapes, so he could do what he wanted with it.) His second favorite part was singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” That’s one song we hadn’t sung at home yet, but we’ll be sure to do so now. He laughed and laughed, with an open-mouthed grin, as Brad and I sang along. I was also bouncing him on my knee to the beat of the song. However, it was the song itself that amused him, because the “Alphabet song” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” didn’t get the same reaction.
The other mom who was there had an 11 month old boy who was more interested in watching Benjamin than participating in the songs and stories. As she explained, he’s not used to having boys, or men, around. Sadly, her husband has been serving as an army engineer in Iraq for about 10 months, so he hasn’t seen her or his son for that long. She told us how hard it is to raise a child with her husband so far away for such a long time, and with her family living in Panama. 
One positive is that he’s coming for a short visit soon. Then he will go back to serve the (hopefully) last 5 months before returning home to his family.
Chatting with her, while Brad and I were both enjoying Benjamin together, made me feel so lucky to have his support as we take care of Benjamin and give each other breaks. I hope that I’ll continue to see her at Mother Goose Time so I can get to know her better and see if there’s anything we can do to help her while her husband is in Iraq.
Here are a couple more pictures that show Benjamin looking entranced by the whole new experience.
