Love Notes

This year, on the first day of school, instead of putting notes in my kids’ lunchboxes as I’ve done every year before now, I left the notes on the kitchen counter next to their sandwiches. “Happy first day of 6^th grade, Ben,” and “Happy first day of 4^th grade, Lucy,” each followed by a small heart and “Mom.”

While treating my kids with respect is something in which I’ve always taken pride, being hyper-vigilant to avoid embarrassing them is still pretty new to me. I’m learning, but I still mortify them from time to time (unwittingly, of course). It doesn’t take a rocket-scientist, though, to know that opening a lunchbox in a crowded school lunch room to reveal a Post-It emblazoned with hearts, smiley-faces and “Mommy loves you!” would prove humiliating for any nine or eleven-year old.

Or would it?

The kids packed their own lunches, so when I found the counter empty except for the note I wrote to Ben, I assumed he had glanced at it, shrugged and said,“huh,” under his breath before leaving it exactly where it was. I couldn't be sure, though, what Lucy had done with her note, but I imagined it went something like this: she picked up the note, read it carefully, smiled to herself (perhaps while holding it to her heart) and then promptly recycled it. I thought I had a pretty good idea of how each scene had played out.

Until Lucy walked through the kitchen, saw Ben’s note still on the counter and shouted,“Ben! Why didn’t you put your note in your lunchbox?”

Why not, indeed?

A couple of weeks later during Curriculum Night at school, I tore a corner off the Parent Hand-Out on which I should have been following along, wrote Lucy a note and tucked it away in her desk for her eyes only (so as not to embarrass her, obviously). After the first-day-of-school lunchbox note, it really shouldn’t have surprised me that when she found the note in her desk, she slid it into the clear, front sleeve of her binder where it has remained ever since. Right where anyone can see it. It says, “Hi Lucy,” followed by a smiley face and, “Mom.”

It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. Don’t worry, though, I didn’t gasp and tear up at the sight of it when she walked out of the classroom with her friends.

Because that would have been embarrassing. (I may still be learning, but even I know that.)