Backwards Day

Always check your books.  You may have read this book to children a hundred times, but there's bound to be something thrown in your path to make you stumble.
Milo's Hat Trick by Jon Agee was a favorite of mine for my storytimes about hats and when I looked it up to see if it was in, our branch's copy was no longer.  We had gone through a weeding jihad over the holidays and I guess that book had gotten a bit tatty.  I wish I'd known - I'd have asked to have it discarded to me to use in storytime.
Luckily, another branch had a copy and I put it on hold.  It arrived in time and I assembled all my materials: hats, flannelboard pieces, hand-out poem.

The first storytime was on January 31st, a day we were supposed to wear something backwards because it was National Backwards Day or something.  I put my name tag on backwards - something I might maintain as a habit.  The children filed in and sat on the dragon rug

Dragon rug apparently no longer available from Highsmith.

and I was scurrying around because I'd forgotten the cd with the Chicken Dance on it.  I toyed with the idea of starting with it (I usually finish with it) because it was Backwards Day after all, but decided to stick to the routine.  There's a reason I don't get them all worked up and then expect them to sit back down again and listen to a story.
After the opening song (If You're Happy And You Know It), I picked up Milo's Hat Trick and did my "The Author Writes the Book" song and opened the book.  Oh, look!  There's a dedication to Audrey!  I don't think that's the one that works here, ha ha ha.  And I tell them that if they write or illustrate a book they can put a dedication in the front to thank their mom or dad or teacher ... or that nice lady at the library who read them stories.  Then I had to turn out the neck of my shirt to show my name tag because I had it on backwards.
I turn the page and start reading.  At the fifth page I can see that it has skipped to the end!  I panic!  Has someone torn out all the pages?  I check and there don't seem to be any cut edges, but I can see more pages than there should be after the fifth page.
The pages were bound out of order!  I had to flip back and forth to keep the correct sequence.  Then I told them it was perfect for Backwards Day!
Today I sat down and stuck tiny post-it notes with numbers on them so I can tell the story in order today without getting lost and looking like a total idiot.
A word to the terminally lazy, like me: Always read the book before storytime, no matter how many times you've used it.