Balanced Meals & Foraging.

Children, one of the chief differences between myself and your father is our eating styles. I, for one, am a "balanced meal" type of person. For example, this is what I eat for breakfast (almost) every morning: a banana, oatmeal, peanut butter, and coffee. Your father's breakfast, on the other hand, looks more like this:







This is called "foraging." I'm no evolutionary biologist, but I theorize that this behavior may have something to do with his innate need to somehow "conquer" a meal before eating it. His favorites are things he pulls from the very back shelves. He also likes the thrill of "dominating" whatever he eats:
Manners? I'm working on it. Maybe by the time you children are alive... (though I'm not especially hopeful).


He's what I like to call "hapless but lovable."

How to Make It Snow.

Well, children, if you're reading this, you've probably attended at least a few years of school, which means that you probably know that snow days are the best thing in the universe ever. But how can a mere human compel a snow day into existence? Just this week, your father broke the code. Turns out, there is a complex series of dance moves that will -- almost without fail -- cause winter weather to render roads unsafe for school buses. Here are those moves:

Move number one. Open your arms to the great sky, inviting its frozen majesty unto earth.

Move number two. Wave your hands across your body, signaling to the sky that "nothing will hinder the earthward progression of your frozen majesty."

Move number three. Rock your arms in a sea-wave-like motion, demonstrating for the sky how high you would like the snow to drift. Simply do this for one hour before bed, eat all your vegetables, and when you wake up in the morning...
Voila. Snow day.


(What, it didn't work? You must not have eaten all your vegetables.)

How to Stay Fit When the Weather Turns Ugly.

As you may know, your mother is an "avid" (read: compulsive) runner. But what happens when the weather turns nasty outside and the gym is too far away to reach safely? You guessed it: Indoor Aerobic Dancing (IAD). See, your dad and I don't really have the space (or spare change) for a treadmill, but thanks to an innovative streak (and a fear of eventually finding myself in prison), I've drummed up a few moves to get a good cardio workout without any machines. I call this one the "high leg with an under-thigh slap."


But to keep things interesting (and to stay on-beat with the music), I've developed a variety of moves, including the "gentle twisty jump," the "nonchalant high knee," and the "triple axle with toe touch" (not pictured):

Visiting Family: A Holiday Tradition

One important thing to do from time to time (assuming you don't have an easily communicable disease) is to visit family members. You may be thinking, "but we live with our family -- why would we need to visit it?" (and yes, family takes the singular pronoun "it" in U.S. English; if you want to use the collective "them," you'll have to go over to the U.K.).

So what should a person do when visiting family members? Here are some suggestions that your father and I have to offer:
Number one: Take pictures. After all, you never know when you'll see these people again. Plus, holding a camera is a good way to get people to look at you.









Number two: Drink wine and wave your hands. What better way(s) to keep your blood flowing on a chilly winter night? (Bonus: Drink wine and wave near fire and you'll triple the warmth factor.)









Number three: Come with a date. After all, it's a family get-together and the pickings are by definition going to be pretty slim once you get there.








Number four: Take care of your chores! Moms are great but they aren't super-humans, so they need a little help around the house (especially when guests start showing up with dates to drink all night). So be a good relative and check your to-do list before you get too comfy around the sofa.

Why Haven't They Been Posting Anything?

A fair question, I admit. But, you see, sometimes Mommy and Daddy get horrible viruses from their students and they are reduced to fountains of germ-laced snot. For example, this is the pile of tissues I accumulated after a single morning of writing Poetry. (Please note, too, that I attempted the "apple a day" illness prevention technique; clearly, it didn't work.)

But now that I'm feeling better, the posts shall return with a vengeance.