Confessions of an Ex-Scrapbooker #1

I had such a crazy-mom experience about two days ago, and decided it’s worth writing about. Not just this one time, but weekly. My hope is that if I share my experiences as an “ex-scrapbooker” it will save you sorrow, unnecessary chaos and keep you from being called a psycho by your five-year-old son!

Where do I begin? This could be a 400 page post, but I will refrain and break it up weekly….So here goes week #1.

My 5-year-old was home early from school and looking for something to do. He kept getting into EVERYTHING that was either too much work at the moment, not his, messy, loud….you name it, he found it. I told him to find something quiet to do, something he could do while sitting on the couch and something he could do all by himself. I buzzed around the house doing laundry, chasing twins and it dawned on me that it was way TOO quiet….

So I came down the stairs to find him curled up on the big red couch, with a blanket, and the SCRAPBOOKS!!!!!!!!!!!! What was he thinking? He knows he can’t touch the scrapbooks! How did he get passed the security system?

“What are you doing with the scrapbooks son?” “You told me to find something quiet to do. So I did. I’m looking at my pictures….I love my pictures…I was so cute…my daddy…remember when…bla, bla, bla…” By this time my hearing was somewhat obstructed due to the fact that my heart was thumping in my ears and my blood pressure was reaching high risk levels. (Now please understand, this isn’t anger management problems…this is protecting and saving the world from losing valuable, irreplaceable information)

I quickly ran over to him and “gently” grabbed the scrapbook from him…by this time I was breathing somewhat heavier than normal, but managed to pry his dirty little fingers off and get the scrapbook back in my hands. “Why are you taking it away? I want to look at my pictures?” “Because you’re too little to look at it by yourself. What if a picture got lost or a page fell out…or a die cut moved out of its place…or a sticker—became unstuck!? Then what would we do?” I rambled on for a few minutes longer….lost in my own little-scary world, caressing the book and heading back to the vault that it came out of.

As I reached up to put the scrapbook back up on the VERY TIP TOP closet shelf where no one could see it, reach it, touch it again….my five-year-old son asked me, “Why are you so psychotic?” AH! Uh? Oh? I froze in mid-motion as I realized I was on my tip toes, teetering to put HIS book of memories, stories and photos on the top shelf of a dark closet where nobody could enjoy or see any of them…..

So now you can see where “Confessions of an ex-scrapbooker” has come from. I never-ever want to be told by a 5-year-old…or anyone for that matter that I am psychotic! Thank goodness I have changed my ways, moved on to publishing all my family's memories in Cherish Bound books.

The story continues….I then went into the family room where all of our family’s Cherish Bound books are displayed, grabbed one of his books from our library, pulled him up next to me on the big red couch, snuggled under the blanket and we read the story about his adventures at Dinosaur World. Now that’s redemption!