Monday, September 20, 2010

Snail Mail

When we lived in Palembang, we hardly got any snail mail. In fact, I can probably count the number of times we received anything right here: Once from a friend in Shanghai, once from a friend in Malaysia and (I think) twice from Bilbo. That was during the entire two and a half years we lived there!

Ever since we moved to Brisbane, Aaron has become the mail boy. Every morning and afternoon, he excitedly makes the trip to the mailbox to see if there is anything there. There usually is, which excites him even more because he hopes there is something for him.

I felt sorry for him and foolishly, placed a CD with a pretend letter from Jurassic Joe in the mailbox for him one day. That made him think that he would automatically receive mail, if not all the time, then at least sometimes. Anyway, I've corrected that and he now understands that apart from things like bills and junk mail, he'll need to send his friends a letter and then hope that they'll write back.

Well, we've started our letter writing adventures. By 'started', I mean that we wrote and posted two letters last Friday. And of course, he checked the mailbox on Saturday AND Sunday hoping that he would get a reply! I just hope that he'll get at least one reply from one of his friends some day soon. What if they don't write back??

I had thought of teaching him about email but the instant gratification of it would have killed off any desire to send snail mail so, I've left that for another day (or year).

The other thing I wonder about is if boys are big on letter writing in the first place. I know that from the time I was eight years old, I exchanged letters with my girl friends almost every other week. This continued until I was about seventeen or eighteen and we all discovered emails and IRC. As I was saying, the letters were mostly with girls. The only mail I received from the guys were from those who sent the soppy Valentine's Day type of letter. Not exactly what I'm hoping for Aaron right now.

Anyhow, we'll see how things go. I just had a new idea to give him a better idea of how the postal system works. We'll send a letter to ourselves tomorrow!

4 comments:

Bilbo said...

I have started writing to my 10-year old granddaughter in an attempt to help her improve her penmanship. I could probably add an occasional letter to Aaron to the mix as well. Stand by for further developments...

Mike said...

Maybe post a map for him and keep track of where the letter might be that day.

Amanda said...

Bilbo : That would be very generous of you. Thanks!

Mike : I tried showing him on the map but he remembered that it only took us a day to get from KL To Brisbane a couple of months ago. So, at most, it should be 2 days! LOL! Its another lesson in patience for him....

elizabeth embracing life said...

I think this is so precious and many lessons to be learned. You are a terrific mama.