Lesson Learned

First of all, feel free to roll your eyes at my thoroughly negligent parenting...but honestly I do have fairly valid reasons, if not viable excuses.

You see, Charlie is a library fanatic.  Wait three weeks to return our first bounty of books?  Heavens, no!  We shuttled back across town Saturday morning for Story Time and a new book hunt, much to his delight.

I'd give Story Time itself about a C.  Charlie was super excited, but really struggled to sit still.  I was somewhat surprised, because he does so well at Circle Time at school.  I honestly think it might have been because I was there, so I'm considering hiding in the stacks next time.   Anyway, Charlie only made it through introductions and one story before I felt like he was a bit too disruptive and convinced him it was time for our book hunt.

Thankfully, he agreed, and we slipped away (somewhat quietly) in search of books about fish.  This is where the problem started.  We have been encouraging Charlie to select a topic for at least some of the books we pick each week, but I have failed to figure out the library computer system and the only authors/books I'm familiar with are the ones we have at home (surprisingly enough, virtually the same ones I had as a kid....hmmmm....). 

So, the effort of trying to reign in 30 lbs of slightly hungry, slightly sleepy, far too noisy 2 year old while frantically scanning the covers of the display books had me sweating. 

Determined to track down at least one fish book, I was a bit distracted when Charlie handed me the book Changes, so I just read the first page which said, "When I was born, my family looked like this.  I was the biggest thing in my mom and dad's life." 

While I found the illustrations a bit odd and ugly, I assumed the book was about a second child coming into a family, and while it's not imminent in our house, we do still hope that it will happen someday, so I added it to the stack.

Eventually we tracked down Rainbow Fish, checked out our books and headed back home for lunch and nap.  Thanks to a stormy afternoon, we then settled onto the couch to read our books and Charlie handed me Changes. 

Imagine my shock when I turned to the second page and read, "Then things changed!  My mom and dad got a divorce..."  Ummmm....oops?  Sadly, I know that Charlie will learn about divorce long before 9 years old, which is when my first friend's parents split up, but I definitely see no need to introduce the topic now.  So I immediately, closed the book, told Charlie it "wasn't entertaining" (really?!?) and moved on. 

Thankfully, he believed me, even telling Daddy "We don't like this book" when he got home later that evening.  If only Charlie was always so agreeable... 

Anyway, I guess I really do need to preview all the books, along with the TV shows and movies that Charlie picks out and be prepared to address and/or veto any questionable or premature topics.  While it sounds pretty obvious, I have to admit I didn't realize it would start so soon...  Lesson learned.