Day 23: Receiving A Letter May 12, 2010

Today Zach got to be on the receiving end of our mailing a letter lesson. In all honesty, this letter may have come yesterday, but Mommy didn’t check the mail. So, we’ll just call it “today” so as not to confuse the two-year old.

After a long day of running errands (one of which was going to the post office!), we came home to check the mail. Zach’s little letter that we mailed out on Friday was waiting in the box for us. He was pretty excited, though probably more about getting to come downstairs to check the mail in the first place than the letter itself.

Reaching for the mail

He looks pretty cute with the mail and PB&J all over his face

We marched back upstairs and I let him open his letter. I asked him if her remembered mailing the letter. He said, “mailbox”, so I’m taking that as a yes. Then I told him the mailman took our letter from the mailbox and delivered it to us. And wasn’t that exciting? He said, “mailbox”, so, again, I’m taking that as a yes.

Reading his letter to himself.

Again, possibly this was delivered on Monday. But we'll keep it simple.

What did Zach learn today? That we send AND receive mail. And from now until he gets his first bill, that getting the mail is pretty fun.

What did Mommy learn today? That mommy’s who take 3 kids to the post office without losing one or more of them deserve special rewards.

Day 19: Mailing a Letter May 7, 2010

Well, today the “Super Top Secret Mother’s Day Projects” left our house and are now in the hands of the US Postal Service. And back on Monday, when I said that these would arrive to the grandmothers “possibly on time”, what I meant to say was “almost certainly late”. But the thought counts. Right?

To go along with the theme of mail, I decided to teach Zach about mailing letters. I read this idea on some other blog, that I didn’t save, and now I can’t link it. But the idea is not my own. And really, this can be done a million different ways–letters to Santa, letters to family, letters to soldiers, etc. But I decided to follow the advice I read on that other blog and have Zach mail a letter to himself. That way he sees the letter going out AND coming to him. Once he gets the concept, we can have him send letters to other people.

So, I had him start by coloring on a note card. This lesson comes with a warning for other moms: do NOT, for one single second, turn your back on your toddler if you are letting them color with permanent marker, not even to simply answer the ringing phone. You will regret it (but WHY did you use permanent marker in the first place, Erin? I don’t know. A lapse in judgement).

Writing his letter

If anyone has tips on how to clean this, let me know. I think we ruined our dining room table today.

Oh yes, he colored on that dining room table so quickly I wouldn’t have been able to stop him if I’d seen it while it was happening. Funny how it’s like pulling teeth to get him to make that many marks on paper, but the dining room table is apparently much more fun to color.

On the inside of the note, once he was done coloring, I wrote a little message. I figure we can track how long it takes a letter to get to us (though I imagine it will only be a day or two, since we sent it to ourselves). In case you can’t read it, it says: “Dear Zachary, We mailed this letter on Friday. The mailman delivered it to us on ______________.”

Perhaps I should have said, "Letter Carrier", I think our "mail man" is actually a "mail lady". Oops.

Then, we took it out to the mailbox.

Carrying his letter

Into the box. Hey, look how "urban" we are, graffiti on the mailbox!

They pick up mail from this box every morning at 10:00am and it was after 10:00am when we did this. So, I imagine it’ll get picked up tomorrow and delivered to us Monday or Tuesday. I’ll post a follow-up when we get to check our mail and receive his letter!

What did Zach learn today? Well, we talked about how a mailman delivers the letters. And that we put our letter in a mailbox and then a few days later the post office delivers it wherever we want! And how letters get delivered to our house too. And that we were sending presents out to Grandma today.

What did Mommy learn? That it’s called permanent marker for a reason. I could have done a numbers lesson here, along with trying to teach him our address, but he had gotten bored by the time I put the card in the envelope to address it. We’ll do that another day. I also had to do the stamp myself.