Oh, man, I want nothing more that to present Eric with a positive pregnancy test for Valentine's Day. I don't want to wait another month!

Let's see. In other "good" news, my father called last night and left the message with my husband that he now has Diabetes. Boy, when it rains, it pours, folks, does it not? I couldn't handle it; I didn't want to handle this, on top of everything else, so I decided to call him back today instead of last night. Hopefully, by tonight, I'll be more composed. I almost went to bed early, tired of the world, but got sucked into Ally McBeal. The highlight of my day was a sitcom; what does that say?

(No, I take that back. Last night's storytime was the highlight. It was just a bunch of two-year-olds, but they were more enraptured by the stories than some of my three to five-year-old groups, even considering the oh-so-fascinating train that went past our window, blasting its horn! They were simply precious, and I'm really looking forward to Monday nights for this month.)

I don't want this journal to be a constant whine, so I'm really going to make a supreme effort to pull my thoughts away from the swiftly deteriorating health of everyone I love. Should any other major crises happen, I will note them, but otherwise I shall refrain from dwelling upon them. Really, I don't think it's doing me any good to focus so much on these horrors.

No parents came in the room today for my three to five-year-old storytime today, and I am so, so relieved that the didn't. At first, I was rather surprised, because at least three of the boys in this group tend to want Mommy with them at all times. They were fine, though, perhaps because I used the ever-popular If You Give a Mouse a Cookie as the first story. We then launched into a rousing rendition of "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," which had them eating out of the palm of my hand. The second story, Don't Need Friends, and the second song, "Where is Thumbkin," also went well. And then it was time for the video.

We used Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen. I was not familiar with the book, but I knew of Sendak's wonderful reputation for great children's books. I was running a little late, due to a librarians' meeting that ran over time, so I didn't have a whole lot of time to select my materials. I saw "In the Night Kitchen" on one of the reserved video boxes, checked to be sure we had the book, and ran with it.

Words can't begin to describe my shock when, by thirty seconds into the video, the main character - a little boy - was butt naked. At first I prayed that the animators would be tactful, showing only a little nude butt. My prayers went unanswered; the boy, diving sweetly into a giant jar of milk, proudly turned to face the "camera," displaying all with which God and the artist had granted him.

It was a penis. A small uncircumcised penis. On the television set in the library, shown to a bunch of children. Oh, no. A little girl turned to me, and I braced myself for her question.

"How's he going to get out of the bottle?"

I quickly looked over the rest of the group; they seemed oblivious to the cartoon nakedness; they were bobbing their heads to the music. The only cause for alarm was the somewhat scary mustache worn by some of the other characters. Even when the little boy arched his back and screamed, "Cockle-doodle-doo!" the children didn't seem to notice his "overexposure."

I, on the other had, was mortified. The moment the tape was over, I quickly tried to remind the kids of "that funny mouse and his cookies!" They left giggling, remembering the mouse, and I remained in the room, blushing furiously. I'm not opposed to nudity on film when it's just me and mine watching, but these were not my kids. I hope nobody mentions to their parent exactly what they saw today; I hope none of them even remember.

I need to keep out of trouble here for the rest of the afternoon. I think I'll start on my February book ordering. That should be relatively harmless; I hope I don't end up inadvertently ordering any violent pornography for the young adult section. That would be just my luck today.

I whispered a warning to the other children's librarian about the video. When she saw the picture in the book, her eyes got round, and she nodded sympathetically. I hope she doesn't rat me out to the boss; I would never have shown the video had I known what was on it!