I was reminded of something my husband did for me back when our oldest child was born and wanted to brag on him a little. So today might get a little mushy.

When I was a little girl, my favorite Disney princess was Belle. She was a brunette and a bookworm. And people thought she was a little weird. Y’all. She was my people. I loved singing along with candlesticks and teapots. And it wasn’t weird to me that she was a human woman in love with what was essentially a living stuffed animal. I was little and slept with a teddy bear every night. It made sense to me.

And what made even more sense in my head was that she began to fall in love with Beast after he gave her a big library. A whole library. With ladders. And three-story windows. Fireplaces and comfy chairs. I would live there if I could. Ever since that scene, I have wanted my own library.

Marie Kondo says that I should probably have no more than thirty books. I have no hate for her, truly. But that goes against my dream. I will choose to ignore that advice. I want to live among hoards and mountains of books.

And now I do. Let me back up.

Clearly, I love to read. I always have. However, when I had my first child, I had a hard time fitting in time for anything that I wanted to do just for me. I think all new parents go through that. It can be difficult, no matter how much you love and cherish your child. I remember telling my husband that I didn’t feel like my own person anymore. He was concerned and did his best to be a supportive partner and try to shoulder a little more of the load. But being that he doesn’t have mammary glands, there were certain limitations.

During late night feedings, I often had to find something to occupy my mind (besides the general and ever-present terror that I would never be a good enough mother) to help keep me awake. I would read. While I pumped, I would read. And the more I read, the more I felt like me. This belonged to me. This wasn’t a Mama activity. It was a Kathryn activity.

For my next birthday, my husband gave me a kindle. It was certainly pricier than we usually go for birthday presents, but he wanted me to be able to download books from the library in the middle of the night as I rocked our son. He even got his mom to coordinate gift ideas with him and get me a gift card to buy books from Amazon to start my–wait for it–library.

It wasn’t three-stories tall. It doesn’t have fireplaces (unless I want to use a picture of one as my lock screen). There are no comfy chairs or ladders. But there are hoards and mountains of books. They are digital mountains, but mountains nonetheless.

My husband. He’s my prince. My fairy tale.

Because he gave me a library.