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The library in my town has a nice storytime twice a week, and I decided to take my girls one evening this past winter.

The kids' room was very welcoming, all set up with a craft table and a circle of chairs for the story.  There was even a handful of sweet older kids there, ready to help out and to interact with all the little ones.

The guests started to come in, and we all gathered into the circle.  My daughters were reluctant to sit down; going to the library is a great treat for us, and sitting still is not our usual behavior while there.  But, I finally managed to corral my girls, more or less, and the storytime started.

The theme was snow, a topic of great interest to my two California three-year-olds, so they got even more excited than they already had been.

Basically, I couldn't keep my daughters in their chairs.  

I kept looking nervously around at the other mothers, some there with kids in comfy PJs.  One mom had a child on a chair on either side of her, each child with his head on mom's lap.  She was stroking their peaceful heads softly while my kids jumped around like little beasties.

The last straw was when the librarian read something about making snow angels, and Djuna threw herself down on the floor and made a snow angel on the rug.

Through my embarrassment, I managed to comfort myself by thinking that, well, at least she was listening and comprehending the story.

But I was just too mortified to stay, what with all the sleepy kids and their moms eyeing me and my hyper daughters.  We stood to go, but the librarian cheerfully called out, "Craft time!"

I looked at her and mouthed the words, "Thank you."  We made our little snowflake and then went home.

Whenever I'm in situations where one of my kids acts a little differently, I think of that snow angel on the carpet.  I remind myself of something that I always used to tell my students' parents: every kid learns differently, and every kid shows what she knows differently.  It's our job as parents to facilitate our kids' personal styles, not to stifle them, even if they're the only one in the library making snow angels on the rug.