No, we have no snow on the ground. I made a snowman for the bulletin board at work. Pretty good job, if I do say so myself. Not that the children ever look at the bulletin board, but we librarians do, so we have a certain need to change it every once in a while. Perhaps I should have done a Pokemon collage; then the little buggers would appreciate what I do for them!

Just kidding.

Well, mostly.

Every day, we get at least three little boys who come trotting up to the desk to ask if we have any Pokemon books. The answer is almost invariably "no," because these books never make it to the shelf. They are checked out, get returned, and are checked out again from the "Today's Returns" cart before they ever make it into the hands of a librarian. It was the same way with the "Harry Potter" books, though less so now than before Christmas. I guess I can surmise from that what everybody's parents put under the tree.

Next time I see a Pokemon book, I'm going to start making a pile on my desk. Easier that way, I'll bet.

I read somewhere that the average lifespan of a character on a children's television show, such as Sesame Street or Barney, is about thirty years. Barney could be here for our children's children. Nice to see that what goes around comes around.

We have a stuffed Barney here at the library. The poor gent has seen better days; his head is matted from being drooled on, and one eye is hanging loosely. I understand that we used to have a huge Barney, but he met with a tragic end, as do many of the toys, as well as books, here.

One of the dinosaurs from The Land Before Time (Little Foot, perhaps?) is gazing up at me cockeyed; he has a broken back and his nose perpetually touches his belly. Little Lego people are all lined up as if to watch an execution; indeed, one of their own is standing, newly headless, before them. A little wagon, meant to carry a set of puzzle blocks, is missing a wheel and an entire side. No matter, the blocks themselves have been meticulously stripped of their puzzles.

Yesterday's weeding was quite depressing as well. Many of the old favorites I remember from my own childhood were in sorry shape, with ripped pictures and crayon scribblings. Does anybody else remember Bedtime for Frances? How about Leo the Late Bloomer? Sadly abused, both of them. They went into a discard pile, to be sold at one of our book sales.

I told Eric he couldn't do my job. He's got a hangup about seeing old things go to their ends; he can't bear to part with old furniture, old blankets, or old clothes. (He'll kill me if I tell you what he does with his old socks...) His parent's basement is a technology graveyard, replete with antique computers and video game units. Rita would love for him to clear them out, but I won't allow them here until he can tell me where they'd go. "In a pile in front of the TV" is not an acceptable answer. Neither is "on the coffee table."

I wonder if Eric's packrat tendencies are an inherited trait? If our children become attached to their Pokemon dolls, will I one day wake up with a basement full of Pikachus, waiting for their original masters' husbands and wives to allow them into their homes? Perhaps it's a good thing that children tend to be so rough with and destroy their toys, for when they grow older, they would never be able to bear the loss.

Children are of stronger stuff, I guess. Oh, they cry when they lose a treasured possession. I once had a stuffed cat, named "Cougar Cat." He was my constant companion everywhere I went, and when I lost him (Mom thinks at the toy store), I prayed every night for years that God would bring him back. It must have killed my mother to hear me repeat that prayer over and over; she looked everywhere, but couldn't find a similar cat.

Still, I think that kids get over losses more quickly than adults. If I lost something now that meant as much to me as Cougar Cat did then, I'd be a mess, especially if it was something irreplaceable. As a child, I suffered a little, but then the prayer became rote, and I repeated it more out of habit than out of heartbreak. Eric remembers how he weaned himself of his pacifier by flushing it down the toilet, waving goodbye, then crying himself silly when he realized it wasn't coming back. He never asked for another one, though, and his mom says he was fine by that evening.

Yep, children are tough.

I do miss Cougar Cat a little, though, now that I've written this...