Cory and the kids are out shopping for my birthday present (the 22nd if anyone is keeping track). Accalia also needs to get new ballet slippers for her class starting in less than two weeks.

I try to avoid Dr. Phil because he really annoys me, but I happened to be flipping channels this afternoon and came upon his show and paused. He had a family on with a very competitive mother - the kind who screams at her kids during their games, yells at the coaches, etc. - who was forcing her kids to do these activities they didn't want to do and was really bringing them down with her desire for them to always win (that being the most important thing of all). Dr. Phil started talking about extrinsic and intrinsic motivation (i.e. extrinsic is doing something because someone tells you to do it and intrinsic being doing it out of self motivation). He talked about how harmful the former can be and how little it actually accomplishes for the person doing it, while the latter does so much more for the person and others around him. This is a big part of our unschooling (and subsequent life) philosophy in how we are raising our children and treat each other. I could go on and on about this, but I'm not inclined to at the moment :) Not that Dr. Phil was endorsing unschooling in any way, but it was nice to hear something like this in the mainstream.

Today was the start of the fall session of storytime at the library. I was a bit disappointed because the number of children was around 15-20, and I was really hoping it would be closer to 10. There were a lot of younger siblings around, so that did add to the general chaos, but it certainly doesn't help when the majority of the parents leave to wander around the library or actually leave the building and leave the librarian to try to conduct storytime and discipline children. Of course this is what happens in school classrooms all the time, so I suppose it's just expected by the majority of parents. There were a couple parents who stuck close by and helped out with their kids, so that was nice.

Accalia had a good time, and her favorite part was the craft (as usual), which was painting. She usually doesn't enjoy listening to the stories, and I think this is partly because they aren't stories she chose and isn't terribly interested in listening to, and she's used to reading being a much more intimate activity. At home, she's snuggled next to me or Cory and has our undivided attention (unless Cole is awake and climbing all over). At storytime, she's trying to hear the story and watch what all of the other kids are doing.

I think I've figured out just one reason why so many kids don't enjoy reading (and I think there are many reasons). I heard so many parents today say things like "You can only pick out two books" or "No, you can't get any books today. We just got books at such and such a place." What? Why would you discourage your child's interest like that? When we leave the library, our bag is stuffed full of books, so that's at least a dozen books that we bring home from the library each week. And we could easily bring home more if I was physically capable of doing so :)

After storytime, we drove to nearby Hartington, Neb., to stop at an open house my co-Leader was holding. It was really, really nice. There were 5 or 6 other moms there - all really nice - and a group of kids. Accalia and Cole had a blast playing with all of the kids. Cole, of course, had to be right in the action with the big kids. That meant I didn't get quite as much of a chance to talk with everyone as I would have liked since the kids were playing on this trolley parked in the front yard, but the nice thing about LLL events is that no one expects there to be a quiet, uninterrupted conversation. It's just natural to have children around and on top of you :)