My Dirty Journal

my dirty journal and all its pieces.

The story of how My Life: vol. 5, Mommy's Book of Secrets turned into a shower toy for my favorite two toddlers:

Husband and I have a pretty big custom built shower in our bathroom. It's a great place for the kids to cool off after playing outside. They can walk around in it. Play. Get wet, not get wet. I let them play in there about once a day while I'm in the bedroom or bathroom feet away, listening to their silliness.

Last week, I was sitting on the bed finishing up a crochet project and the kids were playing in the shower. Well, Daughter was playing in the shower and Son was coming back and forth from the shower to the bed adjacent.

I'm paying little attention to what Son is holding as he goes back to the shower. About a minute later, Daughter yells something that I don't exactly remember. Something about "it is dirty" Then Son squeals. This was a new phrase for her (even in the shower) and it piqued my curiosity. I walk the few feet from my bed to my shower and peek in.

...

Daughter was lathering up my journal and Son was holding their container of soap.

lathering

up

my

journal.

(keep calm. keep calm. keep calm. If you lose control they will both get upset and then all three of you will be crying and your journal will still be soaked. rescue the journal deal with the kids later.)

I step into the shower. snatch my very water logged journal up off the floor and in the calmest voice I can muster I croak out something like, "My journal was not dirty. That was a no no no." I'm pretty sure it came out as a screech.

I take the journal to the counter, start flipping through the pages. they are mostly ok. the top, bottom and outer side inch was soaked on all the pages, but the middles of the pages were still dry. I calm down a little. My journal has really thick pages. I think it has a pretty good chance of drying out.

So, I turn around to start doling out the age appropriate punishment for each child even though I wasn't sure what that was yet and I notice the floor. pages of my journal on the floor. the inside front cover on the floor. They ripped out 8 pages and most of the inside over. Again because the pages are thick I was able to get them laid out flat to dry. I became slightly traumatized. I stuck my head back in the shower to announce shower play time was over because it is a no no no to bring books in the shower and wash them. That was all the discipline I could manage at the time.

(sigh)

I still haven't tried to put it back together yet. tape, staples, whatever. I'm not quite ready yet. The book is hard to close and the pages while not quite stuck together are hard to turn. And they are definitely water damaged.

Oh what a story Volume 5 has to tell! Also, I've learned that my bed side table is no longer a safe place for my journal.