We Love Books!

We love to read in our house and, as far as I'm concerned, books in the home are a real treasure.

With that being said, our two year old daughter has a lot of story books - some were mine from childhood, some are gifts and some have started multiplying on their own! We love books in our house but I was quickly becoming overwhelmed...

books on the shelf, books on the floor, books under the sofa, books in the kitchen cabinets, books in the bathroom, books walking past me asking, "what's for dinner" (joke)...

One night, in a cleaning frenzy, I decided that all of these books need a home, now. A home up, up, up in the closet where little hands could not drag and drop them wherever they please. If this sounds cruel please bear with me. Since our daughter likes to conduct "experiments," sadly more than one pop-up book suffered a slow and painful death by Toddler-Tear-A-Lot (sounds like a Care Bear name, yes?). I also found that we were reading the same 3 books over and over again. Yes, I understand children love repetition and it's good for them, blah blah, but I'm pretty sure the person hawking that statistic didn't have to read Hoppity Hop Bunny over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, again (side note: I like Hoppity Hop Bunny, it was just the 1st thing that came to mind).

So, voila. May I introduce you to:

Mr. Rotating Library loves

Ms. Book Basket

Success! 5 books (one from each of the 5 piles) in Mr. Rotating Library get taken off the closet shelf and placed in Ms. Book Basket. We keep the same books in the basket for 2 weeks (originally I estimated 1 week, but 2 is working out better for us) after which, each books gets placed on the bottom of its original pile and 5 more "new" books get taken off the top of each pile and put into the basket. Rinse and Repeat! I do NOT have to worry about books being littered all over our house (books deserve respect) and I'm no longer experiencing anxiety over having a ton of books that will "never" get read. 

Do we go to the public library? Yes. 

Do the books stay at the public library? Yes. 

Does this make me happy? Yes.

Here's the crazy part, we have enough children's story books in our house to last us an entire YEAR of 2 week cycles (not including Christmas books). Will I deny my daughter her favorite books? No way, if she asks she shall receive. But, until then, I won't be seeing Hoppity Hop Bunny until +/- Easter (he deserves a break anyways).