Maddie's Birthday Thank You Notes: Better Late Than Never, but I Wish We Had Our Own Rubber Address Stamps

I've joked with my loyal Roxiticus Desperate Housewives readers about not being Mother of the Year material (in fact, my older daughter did present me with my very own "Mother of the Year" award in front of her first grade class around Mother's Day this year), but I feel like we all do our best to raise our kids...instilling values like gratitude and graciousness, perhaps best expressed as a young child by sending thank you notes for gifts. Unfortunately, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and Roxy is known around our household (okay, okay, around the whole Roxiticus Valley) as a bit of a procrastinator. Maddie's sixth birthday party was back in the middle of March, and we had an amazing ballet party featuring Miss Katie from Garden State Ballet and about thirty little girls in tutus in our basement. I took many pictures of each girl -- every plie, sote, grand jete, tondue and arabesque was captured on film.

I started down the righteous path by ordering the full Hannah Montana Party Pack of plates, pinata, party favors and thank you notes. I took note of each gift as Maddie unwrapped it. No more than a week after the party, Maddie painstakingly wrote out a personal thank you note to each little girl. I ordered copies of the photos online and made plans to sort through them and mail them out as part of each guest's thank you packet. And then? I ran out of address labels and didn't get out to Staples before Rex's surgery and our spring break in April, and I couldn't figure out how to get the funny-size envelopes into our printer (and besides, we had already stuffed them with thank you notes and photos). I started to wish I had one of those personalized rubber address stamps, but didn't go to the trouble of ordering one online. So, five months later, I think the cost of postage has gone up, and here we sit with Maddie's unmailed thank you notes.

The good news for a procrastinator like me is that Vista Print online is offering 50% off small rubber stamps (use coupon code Stamps50), or 50% off return address labels (use coupon code Labels50). So, if you're one of those Roxiticus Desperate Housewives whose little ballerina is waiting patiently for a thank you note from Maddie while you question Maddie's upbringing, I have six key words for you: "Your card is in the mail!" And you'll have it before they start the first grade in September.