Dear

Ooops, sorry, this was last Friday's.  Never made it from "draft" to "publish."  

For an introduction to Five Minute Friday, click here.

This week's one-word prompt is: Dear

Ready?

GO.

I needed some help getting started today, so I searched for "dear" in my e-mail inbox.  Which of course is an incredible fount of knowledge.  

The search results made me laugh - they were almost entirely from my bank, the airlines, our health insurance company etc etc.  Customer service representatives.  "Dear Ms. Ritchie."

Because "Dear" is the polite, albeit formal, way to start off an e-mail.  Which  most of us don't do anymore.

Politeness and manners are really important to me.  My parents were great in that they gave us the option to respond "Yes" or "Yes Sir/Ma'am," but "Yeah" was off the table.  I thought it was a pain growing up but now I appreciate the fact that saying "Please," "Thank you," "Excuse me," "I'm sorry," come out of my mouth often before I realize.

I want being polite to become second nature to Caroline as well.  We're (as in Mike and I) are working on saying please and thank you to her if she hands us something, or puts something back in the dishwasher instead of throwing it on the floor.  You'd be amazed, but at 9 months, I'm pretty sure she already gets it.  Can't say it, and I'm sure she often thinks "Yeah, I know what you're trying to get me to but I'd rather not."  Still, the few times she's handed something to me and clapped make me clap too :)