I still can’t quite believe it happened. Today, my son dropped his brand new iPod into the toilet.
While I did not witness the actual event, after carefully surveying the scene it appears that it mostly landed in a pile of poo and my son try to wash it off under the tap before telling me it had gotten wet in the toilet. Had he not left a smear off feces on the bathroom sink, I may have believed that story.
Once again my child has both impressed and horrified me with his ability to spin stories. Clearly in his mind, getting poo on the iPod is worse than water.
Wrong, so wrong.
While trying not to yell or sob I calmly explained that poop is better than water or other liquids because poo can be wiped off where as fluids can destroy an iPod..
The good thing is that it appears to have escaped being dunked in urine which, according to my tech-savvy brother - is ideal because urine is acidic and will eat away at the iPods insides, where as water and hopefully poo doesn't.
Following lessons learned from the ghosts of spills vs technology past, I turned it off immediately, dried it as best I could and then laid it out gently on a towel on top of the barbecue when I will leave it to dry for the next two days.
Now, the real dilemma. If the iPod is toast, if it can't be saved because my son decided to use it while on the toilet despite my specific instruction not to, do I buy him another one? The obvious answer is no.
But...
I enjoy having my iPhone to myself. Ever since the kids received their iPods, my iPhone has been in my full custody and I haven't missed a message, a phone call or a Facebook post.
Once when my older son lost his iPod I secretly bought him a new one a week later but told him I had just found his old one. The reason I did this was because I didn't want to teach him that if he loses something of value I would just replace it, so he could continue to be careless. At the same time I really wanted him to have an iPod because he was the one who used to always take my phone.
My parenting logic is clearly flawed and in opposition to everything I know to be 'right' but I have always based my parenting decisions by balancing good parenting practices with my sanity.
