From the time the triplets were toddlers..I remember, most afternoons, we’d be sitting together drawing and coloring. I used to have them around, with me in the center and I would draw to them…profiles of different animals. How would you distinguish between a Rabbit and a Mouse, in the drawing?! By its ears!!
I had their playroom walls full of drawing boards so, at any moment, each of them would have a board to herself. Other than toys..the closets were full of activity books and cute little diaries that I could find in the market. Seemed like I was more fascinated by those cute diaries than them. Any paper scrap would have done for them, I’m sure.
They used to fill all those little diaries with their drawings and as they started to write…they started to emulate their writings after the books they read…They started to pick after writing styles that attracted them, and illustrations was a big part of their writings, then. I remember, a first grade teacher pointing out to me that, she discouraged them from drawing and encouraged them to write first, because,…they were so into it and would spend all of the time in the illustrations itself 
The Diary of the Wimpy Kid was the one that helped them take a direction in journaling. It helped them set their illustration style. Today, they are 11 years old and they still continue to write in their diaries, and illustrations is still a big part of it. R on the other hand loves to read their diaries and break all rules … her elder triplet sisters set for their diaries.
For a long time, the girls have gotten in the habit of taking their reading to the bathroom, to be precise, The Loo!
They read there and sometimes I’ve even found them with their laptops! Often times..so engrossed, they forget that they are on a potty seat and its time to finish!
Well..easy to follow, R has taken to this habit too. I mean…reading on the toilet seat! Only, she loves reading her sister’s diaries. She has found our bathroom to be a safe haven to read her sister’s diaries. Recently, I found a diary, in my bathroom. It was a cute little white bound diary and had these big words written on them.
“Keep Calm and Don’t Read”
Well…I could keep calm because..that’s the only way I’d be out of the Loo quick..right?! But, the Don’t read was too good to Ignore, so, I opened the diary..and found out it belonged to one of the triplets…Reading it calmed me down further. It was cute and had entries from summer of last year..around the triplet’s birthday..
It continued up until December of last year and then abruptly stopped. She had written about what she was hoping to get for Christmas.. Since, Daddy dear had told them that their choices were too expensive and turned them down…she’d put in her hopes and every day, had an entry that talked about how she suspected Daddy dear to be fooling them..that it must have been that package that came that morning…She had noticed how Daddy had ran out to get to it.
Sitting at the Dinner table today..suddenly, Papa mentions about the Diary in the Loo….The Calming Diary that tells you to read it by telling you, not to read it!
“Oh…why don’t you give me another diary to read!” , he says.
Suddenly…all the girls were starring at him, all baffled.
“That diary…that says to keep calm and don’t read!! I’m tired reading it everyday…I want another one now!”, he clarifies.
Now the girls are all starring with “squinchy” eyes at R.
R!!!!!, they shout together at her.
Daddy dear continues..mockingly..
“What! There are hardly any entries in there..You start off last summer and write a little about when you school starts and then you jump to DEC?!!”
I joined in with him.
“Yeah!!…. and as soon as they got their UGGS, she stops writing!”, I say.
N is embarrassed and shocked that both of us had peeked into her diary….inspite of the “KEEP CALM AND DON’T READ!!” instruction.
She exclaims…
“Mumma…you too!!!”
“You read it too!”
So, thanks to R, my youngest daughter…I got a peek into some of my daughter’s unshared moments..or, so I thought.
Well, The question had remained…hadn’t it?
I asked again.
“WHy did you stop writing..?”
“I have another diary. I write in several”, she replied.
Oh!!..so, she keeps the harmless ones around to be found?!!!
Anyways..Today, Papa comes to me at bedtime and says..
“There’s another diary in the bathroom, who’s is that?!”
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