Jay-Z.

“Daddy!” he called cheerfully across fifty feet of library.

”Hi!” I said, fast-stepping toward him so as to possibly allow him to speak at a decibel level slightly less than that of a riding lawn mower that’s running over a tangle of barbed wire. “What’s going on?”

I remember explaining to our older kids a few years ago about what a stage whisper is. The memory of this conversation flitted briefly through my memory, simultaneously with the realization that I had, until this point, never heard a stage whisper that was, in fact, twice the volume of Placido Domingo bellowing into a megaphone.

“Guess what I did in my pants?!” The boy whispered, in the manner of the stage whisper I reference in the above paragraph.

“Did you…” I asked quietly, leaning toward his ear, “…poop in your pants?”

He generously shared his news with me, confirming with a whisper that dwarfed his previous yell. “I did,” he whispered enthusiastically, “I did poop in my pants.”

He quickly corrected himself. “Actually,” he said, “I pooped in my diaper. My diaper is in my pants.”

This was a reality worth celebrating. Without going into details, I will confirm, fast forwarding ten minutes, that I was deeply grateful that there was, in fact, a diaper being worn underneath those pants.

And again, my dear public library, thank you for welcoming us. I know you’re mandated by law to allow all to pass through your doors…but if you had shown a little bit of disgruntlement, irritation, or impatience at the non-subtlety of our experience there today, it would have been understandable. But you didn’t. We felt welcome. A home on the road, surrounded by friends and stories and adventure contained within a million pages.

Thank you for having us. Again.