Recently, my sweet Busling (who is seven!!!) has been transitioning from captain of Team Mommy to full-fledged Daddy’s boy. I’m mostly happy about this (and hoping some of it will rub off on his big sister), both because I want my kids to have a strong relationship with their awesome father and because I’d like their neediness to occasionally be directed at someone other than me.

But sometimes, I feel this very normal separation as a loss. Like Wednesday, when B brought home a card he’d made during his class Valentine party. Each kid had made one card, and his, he announced matter-of-factly, was for his dad. He was so proud when he showed it to me, insisting that I smell the rainbow heart he’d drawn with scented markers and read the lovely note inside. My good angels couldn’t wait for Bus Nerd to see it. My bad angels were feeling abandoned by my once cuddly, affectionate, mom-centric baby. The bad angels won.

After some cursory praise, I — a woman who has never expected (or even wanted) a valentine from her own spouse — asked, in a tone that might have come across as a wee bit jealous, why he hadn’t made a valentine for me. I managed to recover from my tantrum pretty quickly, but not before the guilt trip had done its damage. Busling immediately busted out a pad of post-its and started writing me love notes. There were lots of sweet messages: I love you, You are my valentine, You are awesome, You give the best snuggles, You rock

And then, just as I was running out of refrigerator space on which to stick the coerced kindnesses, he handed me this.

I have no idea what inspired him write those words. It could be the “courage” sticker that has been a fixture on my laptop since 2013. More likely, it’s that his beautiful, intuitive spirit knew it was just what I needed to be told right now, as I gather myself to resist the evil that is descending upon us.

Maybe you need to be told, too.