Dinosaur vs. The Library

Most kids have some books.  Some kids have many books.  Only a few kids have most of the many books.

My kid is one of those kids. 

Read it NOW!

Granted, most kids don't have a Grammy that sends a grocery bag full of books home with them every time they visit (which is several times a week, given that we live 3 miles away).  These books have been accumulated during my mother's years of teaching - all purchased with her own money, so when she left, they left with her.  I don't know what she thought she was going to do with them, but I'm guessing that when I told her I was pregnant her first thought was something like this:

"I'm going to have a grandchild!  Thank goodness those books won't be stored at my house!"

And so, with the exception of two enormous tubs that remain at Grammy's house, the Esber Family District Library was formed.  As the de-facto Head Librarian of this establishment, I'd like to take a moment to give you a tour.

This is the shelf we keep handy for diaper changes, mealtime entertainment, and short bursts of reading.  These are not arranged in any order whatsoever as we typically see them all pulled off the shelf and re-shelved approximately 496 times a day.

   

This is the bin of currently-in-use books.  We have different topics in here, but generally speaking the common thread for this bin is "books that the Little Mister likes to read on a regular basis."  It sits next to the couch and is pulled from for our morning and evening reading sessions.  Books are rotated in and out as needed.
 

These are our before bed books.  They includes bedtime stories and our Bibles.  As you can see, our main patron is showing off currently using this section. 

These are the same books, after our patron decided that sitting nicely in front of the camera is BOOOOOORING...

  

 These are our stalling-before-bed books.  Used primarily to guilt one or both librarians into reading one more story before bed.  Always one more story.

Now you are probably thinking, "That's not so many books.  What kind of library do you think you're running here lady?"  But before you go into a tirade about tax payer dollars being used to fund public services like a library, please allow me to show you our archives:

 

Each bin is individually labeled with the subject of books that it contains.  For example, our Junior Librarian's (yes, I totally just called Patrick our Junior Librarian) favorite:

The archives are where we pull new books from and where we search if we want a book on a specific topic.  They are pretty extensive.  The main problem is getting them back in the proper bin, as the Master Librarian and philanthropist of this project (my mom) has had to tell me on multiple occasions that books about money go in the math bin (not science or American government), books about habitats go in the science bin (not non-fiction animals), and under no circumstances are the units on insects and birds allowed to be grouped together in a "flying things" pile.  Sheesh.

Patrick and I are both big readers, so I know we are both looking forward to sharing each and every book in the Esber Family District Library with our son over the years.  Patrick has already outlined a reading plan to ensure we read all of the books before the Little Mister goes to kindergarten (I suspect he has a spreadsheet, but he won't own up to it).  And that plan should work beautifully...if we can somehow become the first parents to ever convince an 18 month old NOT to just re-read the same 5 books over and over and over and over...

Bonus points to whoever can guess what his favorite subject is!