No writing allowed

So I've been hoping to get back in the routine of blogging and it's just not happening. I turn on the computer and get sucked into checking email, IMing, shopping for bunk beds and random other things and never get around to updating my blog. So I thought maybe writing in a notebook would be a better idea. Fewer distractions.

Every writing book I've ever read has hyped up the idea of writing on paper versus typing on a keyboard. Some say there's a connection between your brain and your hand and you shouldn't let a keyboard get in the way of it. Some say that it's far too easy to continually edit your thoughts on a computer which isn't nearly as simple on paper. Some say there's a certain flow or rhythm that happens when you're writing by hand that is harder to come by on a keyboard. There are various reasons but at the beginning of every writing book or class you're told to go out and buy a notebook.

Some suggest beautiful leather-bound ones, others push cheap spiral bound ones so you're not afraid to mess them up, but they all tout notebooks as being a very necessary tool if you want to write. So maybe that's why I’ve always had a mild obsession with notebooks especially empty ones. You can't be a real writer without notebooks.

I love new notebooks. I love flipping through the blank pages and I love the way they smell. Some people like the new car smell, I love the smell of new notebooks. (I’ve occasionally wondered if the first kid to sniff glue was just happily inhaling the scent of creative possibilities instead of trying to get high) For me, new notebooks have always represented a fresh start. Endless possibilities. Perhaps I would write something truly brilliant in this notebook. Yes maybe this would be the notebook that inspired me to greatness. Unfortunately I haven’t run across that notebook yet.

(1:38 pm Amanda attempts to take the pen out of my hand and asks, “Can I write something?” No.)

When I started working and was able to spend my money any way I wanted, I remember going completely nuts when I found a great sale on notebooks and I bought ten of them and then went back the next day and bought ten more. I felt like I’d scored the mother load. I could have a brand new notebook any time I wanted which was good because once I started writing in them, the shiny newness started to wear away. The thrill of a brand new notebook only lasted a short while before I began filling it with mindless drivel, the kind that I would be horrified to have anyone read.

It never occurred to me that having children meant that I would give up the option to freely write with pen and paper. For some reason, if my children see me writing they will do everything within their power to stop me. I still remember when Amanda was only a year old and I actually sat on top of my dining room table with all the chairs stacked on top of each other so she couldn't climb up with me while I handwrote a card for a baby shower gift.

Yes, my children have done their very best to cure me of my notebook addiction. Now the excitement I feel when I see a display full of fresh new notebooks for sale is tempered by frustration. Lessened by the knowledge that the newness of any one of those notebooks might last all of 3.2 minutes at our house. The newness, in fact might not even make it intact all the way to the check-out counter if Alyssa spies me attempting to place it into our shopping cart. “Me want book. Me daw Mommy?” NO! Once she gets a notebook in her hands it’s like setting her loose in a house built of cards. Certain destruction will follow.

In some ways I feel like on the day I gave birth to Amanda I gave up ownership to… well, pretty much everything… my body, my thoughts, my time, my energy, my love, my money, my food, my future plans, my devotion, my sleep, my home and everything in it, my privacy, even my dignity on occasion. I’m not complaining. I have to admit that it has been a good trade. Completely worth it considering what I’ve gotten in exchange. I willingly share most everything with my children, including chocolate. But when it comes to my notebooks I have all the maturity of a two-year-old. I want them to be mine-mine-MINE!

(1:46 pm Alyssa notices I’m writing. “Want pen! You done, Mommy?” No!)

I need to have at least this one thing all to myself. Each time I get a notebook I tell myself that this will be the one that the girls won’t touch. I will keep this one up high. I will only write in this one when they are asleep. Or tied to a tree.

But eventually – and it usually doesn’t take me too long – I slip up. I fall asleep after setting it on the nightstand or I set it on the table when I go to the bathroom. And then I forget about it. It never takes long before the Deserted Mommy Notebook sensor goes off causing my children to come skittering from wherever they may be to descend on my untainted notebook.

I’ve set them both loose with notebooks more than once hoping it would cure their fascination but apparently that only fed the monster. Now they think that ALL notebooks should be theirs to destroy in any way they see fit. Santa brought notebooks for each of them, which they loved but nothing is as good as MY notebooks. The fact that I don’t want them to touch them makes them just all the more intriguing. But I don’t want to share.

Alyssa can destroy an 80-page college-ruled notebook in less time than it takes her to sprinkle sand from one end of the house to the other after a particularly good session of playing in the sandbox. That’s under 48 seconds for those who haven’t been paying attention. She crumbles, she tears, she “washes” it with apple juice. She manages to leave a permanent mark of some kind on nearly every single page. It’s truly impressive.

Amanda’s method is slower, sneakier, and far more insidious.

“Mommy, can I draw in that book?”

"No Sweetie, this is Mommy’s. Use your own paper."

"How ‘bout just one page?”

“Amanda this is my notebook. Why don’t you go get one of YOUR notebooks? Do you want me to help you find one?”

“I want to write in THAT notebook.”

“I know Sweetie. I understand. But this is Mommy’s notebook. You know how you have some things that you don’t want Alyssa or anyone to touch? Well that’s how I feel about this notebook. I want it to be just for me.”

Unfortunately Amanda can spot a sucker from ten miles away.

“Okay Mommy, it’s just that I wanted to draw a picture for you. So when you look at it you remember how much I love you. But it’s okay if you don’t want me to.” (ding – ding – ding. We have a winner!)

“Okay, but only ONE page.”

“No, that’s okay Mommy. I don’t want to wreck your notebook.”

“Oh Amanda, I never said you were going to wreck it. It’s just a notebook. And I like your pictures. Here, draw one for me.”

Once she’s in all she has to do is wait 'til I’m distracted (and we all know I’m easily distracted), maybe on the phone or in the middle of doing laundry, trying to get Alyssa down for a nap or just smoking crack and all she has to do is flash me the page she’s already drawn on, “Mommy can I draw in this?” Sure!

And before I know it she has filled the entire book with drawings and stories (which are only somewhat legible at this point but getting better every week.) “Mommy, I wrote a book for you!” Great!

(1:53 pm I succumb to Alyssa's pressure and draw a picture of a baby in the margin of my notebook.)

The pen situation is even worse. There was a time in my life, pre-motherhood, when on any given day if I were to dump out my purse I would have found 10-15 pens. I was a pen hoarder to the worst degree. But now? I can never seem to find a single working pen.

Yesterday in an effort to fill out an extremely short permission slip and write yet another check to Amanda’s school, I hunted down, swore at and eventually threw away three non-working pens. More times than I care to admit I’ve been reduced to writing notes, grocery lists and phone messages with crayon stubs. The lack of pens in our house drives Scott crazy too.

Alyssa on the other hand, always seem to have a working pen in her hands leading Scott to announce, “She has another pen. Dione!!! She has another pen! Go give that to Mommy.”

Where does she get so many pens? I have No Idea. I seriously have wondered if she is squirreling them away somewhere and maybe one day I’ll stumble upon some hidden room where there is an intricate sculpture of the Taj Mahal built to scale entirely out of ballpoint pens and, well probably notebook paper.

Which leads me to another issue: creativity. I always thought I’d be the kind of parent to encourage and nurture creativity in my kids no matter what. I always pictured that my children would have round-the-clock access to all the art supplies their hearts could desire. Paint, play-doh, huge spools full of drawing paper, glitter, glue-sticks and crayons as far as the eye could see.

But then Real Life happened. Real Life with crayon on the walls, silly putty ground into the carpet, my grandma’s leather chair autographed with ball-point pen. And with Real Life came a Real Miserliness with the art supplies.

Of course Amanda can use the crayons. But she must first provide me with two forms of photo ID and some kind of highly valued collateral before I let her “check out” three colors of my choosing with the promise that she will return them before she gets three more. If Alyssa gets ahold of one of the crayons I get to keep the collateral, and Amanda, I’m sorry that you can’t sleep without your lullabye rabbit but next time you’ll be more careful, won't you?