Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Kids. You gotta love 'em. It’s a commandment.
I enjoy journaling when I have the time—which doesn’t happen very often, but recently, I started up again. I love the look of a leather-bound journal, crisp, thick paper, all that. It just seems like a wonderful keepsake that I hope someday my grandchildren will tenderly pick up and wander through.
Yeah, right. They’ll probably rip it from a forgotten corner in the attic and toss it in the garbage without reading a single word.
Still, I’m a writer, and we have great imaginations, so I imagine that one of my descendents will actually browse through these things.
So tonight, I’m watching the grandkids and they’re waiting on their parents to come get them. While waiting, they’re SUPPOSED to be sleeping. As it turns out I have to separate them and one ends up on the couch beside me. I’m at one end writing in my journal and the three-year-old is at the other end, pretending to sleep.
Suddenly, I have to get up and check on the other two girls (who are fighting) and when I come back, I see the three-year-old placing my pen back on the journal.
“I was just fixing this for you,” she promptly offers.
I should have known then something was up, but being a grandmother I thought, “How sweet.”
I shouldn’t have.
When I reopened my journal, I found that said three-year-old had written her two cents worth in scribbles across my crisp, leather-bound journal. The clean paper on which I try so carefully to use my best penmanship was now soiled. Or was it? The more I thought about it, the more I realized her scribbles will mean more to me than a signature by Thomas Kinkade in the years to come as she grows into a woman. So my paper is a little messy? I’ll look at those scribbles one day, glance at the grown woman who had written them long ago and marvel that it seems only yesterday.
I enjoy journaling when I have the time—which doesn’t happen very often, but recently, I started up again. I love the look of a leather-bound journal, crisp, thick paper, all that. It just seems like a wonderful keepsake that I hope someday my grandchildren will tenderly pick up and wander through.
Yeah, right. They’ll probably rip it from a forgotten corner in the attic and toss it in the garbage without reading a single word.
Still, I’m a writer, and we have great imaginations, so I imagine that one of my descendents will actually browse through these things.
So tonight, I’m watching the grandkids and they’re waiting on their parents to come get them. While waiting, they’re SUPPOSED to be sleeping. As it turns out I have to separate them and one ends up on the couch beside me. I’m at one end writing in my journal and the three-year-old is at the other end, pretending to sleep.
Suddenly, I have to get up and check on the other two girls (who are fighting) and when I come back, I see the three-year-old placing my pen back on the journal.
“I was just fixing this for you,” she promptly offers.
I should have known then something was up, but being a grandmother I thought, “How sweet.”
I shouldn’t have.
When I reopened my journal, I found that said three-year-old had written her two cents worth in scribbles across my crisp, leather-bound journal. The clean paper on which I try so carefully to use my best penmanship was now soiled. Or was it? The more I thought about it, the more I realized her scribbles will mean more to me than a signature by Thomas Kinkade in the years to come as she grows into a woman. So my paper is a little messy? I’ll look at those scribbles one day, glance at the grown woman who had written them long ago and marvel that it seems only yesterday.
17 Comments:
Elle does that and it drives me NUTS!! It's like there's a blank page, I must fill it. Maybe someday you'll look back and ponder its sweetness. I doubt I will. It bugs me. But I do have a trick. Target usually has clearance ones on sale for nothin' and I buy her those and act like they're mine because she's not interested in them if they're hers. LOL
Oh my goodness, that's hilarious, Kristin!! Fortunately, she only scribbled one neat little line, so it wasn't like a whole page of scribbles so I can live with it. *g*
My niece used to like to write in my journal because she saw me doing it all the time. She would make these little tiny marks along one line, then painstakingly move to the next. It was sweet. Now she's 20. Goes fast. But I love those little marks.
Mine are too old to scribble anymore, but the other day I pulled out a stack of Post-Its to use and saw "someone" (My 8 yr old) had drawn a circle on every page, varying its placement so that when you flip through it comic book style, it appears as a bouncing ball.
Just be glad it was your journal. My grandson was at my computer and saw a permanent black Sharpie pen in my pencil holder and proceeded to draw on a piece of computer paper (very thin when used with permanent black Sharpie pens) ON MY CHERRY DESK. Result: permanent black scribbles ON SAID CHERRY DESK. Permanent, until I got the bright idea to remove them with fingernail polish remover. Eeek. Well, the black scribbles are gone, but so is the shiny finish where the black scribbles were. Sigh. But I just call scratches and Things Accidentally Ruined "character." "Let the living begin," as a homeowner said in Traditional Home mag, in reference to a scratch across her new wood floors.
P.S. I miss Colleen.
Ah, Denise, my 7 1/2 year old just did the same thing. I have that same pad of post-its laying on my kitchen counter. LOL. Boys!!!
LOL, Denise and Sabrina! Sounds like a couple of guys you know have a future with Disney . . . .
Kristy, a cherry desk? Yikes!
I MISS COLLEEN, TOO!!
The journal I can handle. But when my 2 year old scribbles in my Bible it is a little harder to cope with. Poor poor Titus...
Titus does seem to get the brunt of Bible mutilation in our family, too. I wonder why that is? I noticed my husband's Titus had fallen out, and you know, that's not really one you want falling out of your husband's Bible. That's worthy of Super Glue. LOL
Hannah writes all over everything she can get her hands on, including my stuff. I wish now I'd saved more of it.
Journals are one thing, books are another. A family member, who absolutely ADORES books, lent one to a friend who had little children. Well, the book came back with crayon scribbles all over the inside covers and things.
Talk about desecration...
I have studio night with my boys. One night, when Zack was quite young, he looked at a drawing I had just finished of Abraham Lincoln. He pointed to it and asked, "Who is that?" The pointing turned into a touch-and-drag-across-the-paper...he did not realize that he had brown oil paint on his fingers...I held my breath and said, "well...that WAS a drawing of Abraham Lincoln...not it's yours."
True, Di. But one has to wonder. When God said a quiver full is a blessing ... He only had One.
Hmmm ... Makes ya wonder, doesn't it? ;)
And before soemone jumps all over me for being irreverent, GET A GRIP! God gave me this sense of humor!
So true, Ane! LOL!!
By the way, LOVE the picture!!
I someone going to tell me that this same "cherish these moments" principle applies to pee stains on the carpet? I really think I could use that right now.
Kristin, you made me laugh OUT LOUD at your comment about Titus falling out of the Bible! And you, too, Ane, about God only having one kid. Haha. Thanks for some good laughs. And the comment about pee stains on the carpet? Use alcohol. It's great for pee and spit-up. Takes the smell out. Sop up the "problem" with a towel, then generously pour alcohol on it and sop it up with a clean towel.
Thanks, Di. You knwo how it is ... new hairdo, new photo. LOL
Vanity, vanity. It's all vanity. Sigh.
snerk
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