The Baby and the Bookshelf

Dear Mama,

I am aware that this whole giant shelf of what you call "books" is really just millions of sheets of paper. I know that a true book is made of cardboard, and I also know that paper is for tearing and consuming. Since we've been through this before, I fail to understand why you are maintaining this horde of paper and limiting my access to it.

Hoping to be granted access soon,
The Management

I feel like I read somewhere that if a child was used to seeing an object and understood how to interact with it appropriately, it would be safe from the general destructive force that is toddlerhood. And so I conceived, carried, and raised a child through the first few months of life assuming that my library would be safe.

Whoever it was that wrote whatever it was that I read is a liar. Or they are bent on lulling new parents into a false sense of security. Or they weren't talking about books because every parent I know understands that a babies favourite food group is paper (or in the Management's case, lumber, so not even the shelf itself is totally safe).

I think I get where they were coming from. Once the Management has fully explored something - turned it over in her hands eleventy billion times, getting to know it from every angle, submitted it to the taste test, thrown it across the room a couple of times to see how it interacts with the laws of physics - she typically leaves it alone, or at least doesn't play with it as often.

But this practice seems to apply only to her possessions; definitely not to the remote, or the phone, or, apparently my books.

There are just so many books, and she can't even reach all the shelves yet, and it takes so much time to examine every single page of every single book, and I think that if I were to spend time chasing her away from the bookshelves every day I would never get anything else done.

I've thought about moving the bookshelf to a less accessible area of the house, and haven't for two reasons - the first is that the Management is starting to figure out doors so wherever I move them won't be less accessible for long, and the second is that I believe that books are meant to be enjoyed, and can you really fully enjoy a book if it's hidden away in some dark corner of the house?

Books have been, and still are, a big part of my day, and I can see that reality developing for the Management and it makes me so proud. I just wish she wouldn't rip out all the pages.