I’m a big believer in thank you notes.

Not voicemails or emails or texts or Facebook wall posts or tweets — the kind of thank you note that actually arrives in the mailbox with a stamp on it and handwriting inside.

That’s not to say that I always manage to get one sent, or that if I do, it arrives in a timely fashion. I can think of one thank you note I should have mailed back in March, which was about the time I was putting the finishing touches on the Christmas thank yous. Whoops.

But if it’s the thought that counts, I’m all over it. And I want to pass that on to my kids, since I’m passing so many less-palatable habits down, like not making the beds and biting the nails.

With Sophie, it’s hard. It’s not easy to get Annabelle to write a thank you note, either, but at least she’s fully capable. For Sophie, it’s truly a struggle. Handwriting’s one of the few areas where I really notice, anymore, how different Sophie is from the rest of us.

The other day Ray dropped Sophie off at her first day of zoo camp, and he was feeling melancholy about it. “At least she has Courtney there with her,” I said, referring to the sitter who is her aide all this week.

“Yeah, that made me sad, too,” Ray said.

That caught me off guard. More and more, Sophie is what she is, from my perspective.

But not when it comes to thank you notes. I hate the fill-in-the-blank ones (what a cop out!) but I snatched up some Olivia ones on eBay to match Sophie’s party theme and hopefully motivate her. That did the trick, and I’m proud to report that this morning, we finally finished the last of the cards — and a few days short of the one-month mark at that. Not bad.

Despite Sophie’s great pains (and the use of the usually-forbidden Sharpie), if you receive one of these notes, you’ll be hard-pressed to decipher it, except perhaps for the “Sophie” at the bottom.

But it’s the thought that counts, right?