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.