My Mother’s Day card read: IloveyousooooomuchmummyyourthebestbestbestandyoumakemehappeesloveloveloveexraloveBeeee!
I smiled, then frowned and got to work.
I drilled my daughter daily on word spacing and punctuation.
I instructed her on the capitalization of proper nouns.
I cautioned against repetition and hyperbole.
The next year:
“Dear Mother, Enjoy Mother’s Day. Sincerely, Beatrice.”
Success!
Mother to two teens, Joanna Norland feels nostalgic for the early years of creative spelling and free form punctuation. She is a playwright and writing coach based in East Sussex, UK and blogs about combining writing and parenting at mumswrite.com.
