Clean Teeth and the Smell of Library Books

It's obvious that a lot of who we are and what we do comes from our parents. A lot of times what religion we are (or aren't), what time we eat dinner and our senses of humor come from our parents.

But did you ever think about the other things? The littler things I mean.

My parents always made sure that we saw doctors regularly. Once a year check up with our pediatrician, and twice a year cleanings from our dentist. You could set your yearly calendar based on those truths. I went to the dentist today because my parents hammered in me the importance of dental health. I was a little (okay a lot) late on this appointment, and I have been feeling super guilty about it like I've been letting my parents down. Haha. Also I LOVE the dentist. LOVE. I know most people hate to go, but overall, I love it. My teeth feel so squeaky clean when I leave!

Another thing my mom encouraged in me from before I was born was a love of reading. I talked about it in detail here, but what I have been thinking about a lot lately is how we spent our summers at the public library with my mom. As my grandmother said the other day, I really believe you can travel the world if you love to read books. So true! I was at the library in Morgantown the other day with my grandma, Aunt Elizabeth and 8-year-old cousin Katie. We were looking in the children's section with her, and I saw a solid shelf of some very old friends, the Boxcar Children (although when I said it out loud it came out like ohhhhh the Boxcarrrr ChildRENNNNNN)! Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny occupied a lot of my time growing up. It reminded me of some other lifelong friends like Ramona, Kristy, Nancy and Jane. When we got back to my grandparents' house Katie started reading me one of her books, and in the middle of reading she paused and sniffed her book. She didn't have to say another word, I knew exactly what she was feeling, but she said, "I love the smell of library books." AMEN!

So today after the dentist, I went to the library. I looked around at the stacks and stacks and stacks of books. But really, it's looking at stacks and stacks of adventures. I picked out four books, two by authors I'd read before and two to take a chance on. I'm so excited! And maybe when I return these, I'll check out Half Magic. For old times' sake.

Edit: I was looking inside Half Magic as you can do on Amazon, and I had forgotten what the first line of the book is. Check this out: "It began one day in summer, about thirty years ago ..." Kind of like me. :) Perfect, right?