this year’s thank you notes

Another round of thank you notes have been made and sent.

I made mine out of some supplies that I had around, plus some new things I got for Christmas. I’m really happy with how they came out. I love the colors, love the washi tape, love the little wooden cutouts. It was really fun to put them together.

Each thank you note season I wonder what the boys should do and how involved in the process they should be. Isaac had it pretty easy. I gave him a piece of paper and asked him to write “thank you Love, Isaac” (I wrote it out on another paper for him to copy) and when he finished, I asked him to add a rainbow…one of his favorite things to draw right now.

Then I took his paper, copied it at 50% and reprinted it onto cardstock.

Not bad!

Then, I wrote out more inside the cards.

Andrew’s been writing his notes for a few years now. I’ve been expecting him to write more and more as he gets older. It started with the simple “thank you, Love Andrew”. And then “thank you for the Batcave, Love Andrew.” This year I asked him to thank each person specifically for the gift and say something about it. Like “Dear Aunt Tara, Thank you for the human body kit. It’s totally cool!”

But the thing about Andrew is…he’s absolutely 100% Andrew. Through and through. I set up the projects I want him to do…projects that are about 75% Robyn and 25% Andrew and he takes them and Andrews-them-up.

This was the thank you note for my parents:

He did what I asked (though I had to stop him part way through and explain that if he wrote the words out of pipes, as he tried to with ‘for’ and ‘the’, it will be too hard to read). He had a “Dear Grandmama and Granddaddy” and “thank for the lego set” and “I like it”…but he had so much more. It’s a Mario maze…and at the top he wrote “for help call” and then I blurred out my phone number because I didn’t want it floating around the internet…but he was sure to add it to the thank you note, in case my parents had trouble getting through the Mario maze.

Not all of his notes were this detailed, but NONE of them were what I was expecting.

With all of this detailed work he put in, he complained a LOT about how long it was taking. Like that was MY fault! I’d give him tips about how to make the process go smoother, but as soon as he’d start the next one, he couldn’t help himself. He’d add all of his who’s-its and gizmos, trying to make each letter an engaging experience for the person receiving it. And perhaps also an engaging experience for him in writing it. ;)

I ended up shaking my head at the mother-son, Robyn-Andrew, combination we have going on. Me with my lessons on thank-you-note etiquette, as though I was wearing white gloves and pantyhose. And him with his busy and mechanical mind, following my directions, but making it all his own. I think as true as it is that Andrew is 100% Andrew, it’s equally true that Robyn is 100% Robyn. He and I are sooo different in so many ways…and the thank you notes were a funny little reminder of that for me.

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