As a side note, Eric is wondering about the legal aspects of conception. Last night he suggested that if we conceive before the New Year, we should immediately get the kid a Social Security Number and claim him or her as a dependent for this year's taxes. He says we can base our arguement on the fact that several men were recently convicted for the murder of their unborn children; if the state can declare them as legally human for purposes of prosecution, why couldn't we claim that our child is a citizen, even in utero?

Things that make you go hmmmm...

My head is spinning from reshelving books. The juvenile nonfiction section is disgracefully disordered, so I and the other kids' librarian have been reshelving them all day. My nose is full of dust and my neck has a crink from reading sideways. Argh.

A children's librarian is witness to all manner of things. This morning, I witnessed a four-year-old girl getting her very first paper cut. Yeowch! It was a deep one, too, and bled profusely. She kept screaming, "It was the book that hurt me!" I hope she won't go off books.

Last night I was called upon to troubleshoot one of the juvenile computers. When I got to the computer corner, I found that the computer in question was neither the Mac nor the Windows machine, but the little yellow plastic "computer" into which the kids slide cardboard sheets and play word games. It wouldn't turn on. Um, I'm sorry, but my "tech expertise" does not extend to the inner workings of electronic toys. I felt so bad; the child almost cried. "I guess I can't do my spelling, now..."

And I'm not even mentioning the smaller children who come into the area to play, such as the little boy who sat playing with the cars, murmuring under his breath, "Welcome to Wendy's, home of the Wendy Burger!" nonstop for about a half hour. Or the "Kiddie Casanova," who approaches any available little girl with "Hi, my name is Scott! What's yours? I live in Ohio!" Or the quadruplets who come wheeling in in their stroller built for four, greeting every person they pass with a chorus of hellos, then scatter once they get to my room; it's a darn good thing that they're as well-behaved as they are, by as much as they outnumber us.

Of course, I don't get to deal with anyone as long as I'm stuck reshelving books. Isolation bites.

We leave tomorrow after work for West Virginia, so there will probably be one more entry before Christmas. I've already opened two gifts: one cam from my conception mailing list Secret Santa (assorted handmade soaps), and one from the library (citrus potpourri). It's shaping up to be a fairly "girly" Christmas, which I don't mind one bit. Eric and I haven't gotten each other gifts yet; we wanted to hold off until after we found out about the car, and now we haven't had time. Perhaps we'll go out tonight.

Yeah, yeah, I know we said that the chest freezer was going to be our Christmas gift to each other, but that was back in October! You can't hold us to that now!

Ah, shaddup and shelve your books, Carrie.