The Bedroom Mailbox

The bedroom mailbox 

I was talking to a friend of mine about some ideas I had regarding our kids.  There were lots of things we were throwing around at one another about devotions, journals, and the like.  One idea that she shared was that she and her daughter have a nighttime notebook.  If the daughter wanted to share some last-minute information, but it was time for bed -- or if the daughter wanted to say something nice to her mom -- she could write it in the notebook.  After the daughter went to sleep, the mom would write a reply back.  The rule was that no one was allowed to rip anything out of the notebook.  The problem was that her son never could buy into it.  He didn't like writing and just never much wrote anything down.

So this lead to me a different version of the same idea.  What about a mailbox where we could write little notes in the evening and get notes back?  Writing one idea on a scrap of paper seemed less daunting than a notebook, plus I didn't think my kids would ever go along with the idea of NOT ripping paper from a notebook.  It's one of their favorite things to do when they've finished a drawing.  

So I picked up these little index card boxes for $.25 each at Walmart!  YAY!  My youngest son set upon decorating it immediately -- even giving it a little flag on the side so that we'd know there was mail ready!  He wrote his name all over it and since I've taken to calling him Sugar Monkey, I only snapped a picture of his brother's "mail box," which he kept completely plain.  We stuck it their bedroom doors with some handy 3M Command sticky tape.

So far the idea is working.  I keep all their little notes and am planning on putting them in a book if we keep this up.  I'd love for this to me a routine in our family -- a great way of bonding even when it's been a bad day.