A homemade gift from the heart

My husband's birthday was this past weekend. Now that they are old enough to voice certain opinions, I asked the kids what we should give to their amazing dad in honour of another year older (and incidentally, the 12th anniversary of our official getting together as a couple).

"I know!" Leave it to my creative five-year-old to instantly have a plan. "We'll make him a shirt, with words on it, and it will say, 'I. Love. You. From Nate, Mommy and Lucy."

Me, I'm a snob I have particular tastes. I work for a shopping website. I'm looking at fancy and pretty things all day! So I tried to steer it elsewhere. "How about a big giant screen for his computer? Or a tent!" (Not that I can really afford either of those things right now.)

"No mom. A shirt. Come on! It will be SO COOL! Have you ever SEEN a shirt like that before?" I hadn't, and I wasn't so sure I wanted to.

But in trying to be a good mom, I took them to the iron-on t-shirt store at the mall to get a tee. Then I wrote what he wanted in Photoshop, adjusted the colour and font size to his exact specifications and then reversed it to be ironed on.

"Mom, you did it wrong. We don't read THIS way!" He pointed right to left. "We read THIS way!" He pointed left to right. (Um, what's the big idea with all this reading and education anyway? Remember when you were an illiterate four-year-old?)

So I explained, for the 40th time that we had to reverse the image in order for it to read correctly once ironed on. Finally, he gave up and let me do my thing with the iron, impatiently standing over me like a sweatshop supervisor until it was finished. 

"We've got a surprise for you!" Nate bounded into our bedroom the next morning, presenting Daddy with the shirt. Daddy got a little misty and wore it proudly the whole day. Nate was right -- it turned out pretty cool. And none of us had ever seen a shirt like this before.