Dear Kid,

Some things are better left alone. Some questions just shouldn’t be asked. And yet, I often find myself asking them.

Questions like: What the HECK is Yellow Pig Day?

So glad you asked.

Yellow Pig Day is celebrated on July 17 and it’s all about the number 17.

It was invented in the 1960s (which should explain a LOT). Back in the day, two math students at Princeton were obsessively studying the number 17 (that should explain a little more). They went a little mad (IMHO “mad” does not mean crazy so much as it means something else—did I mention this was in the 60s?) and decided to invent the idea of a yellow pig with 17 toes, 17 teeth, 17 eyelashes, etc.

Creating new and prime creatures is not generally considered a sound way to launch a career, but it seemed to work for those two.

Yellow Pig Day is sometimes celebrated on May 17^th (stick with me here: May is the 17^th month of the previous year). Other mathematicians have gone “a little mad” and not felt any trouble bending the Gregorian calendar to fit their own needs.

If you feel the need to celebrate Yellow Pig Day, I suggest eating yellow food and wishing those around you a happy Yellow Pig Day.

I do not suggest oinking or inventing new ways to interpret the calendar.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I woke up with the Frog Song running through my head (frogs here, frogs there, frogs were jumping everywhere). It left lots of webbed footprints in my brain and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to write to the Kid about frogs today?”

No, it wouldn’t.

I discovered (as I sipped my most excellent Buckeye Buzz coffee) that My Friend the Internet has not organized weird facts about frogs into a nice sanitized version suitable for moms to read before breakfast.

Instead, there are a lot of froggy facts that are designed to keep 8 year old boys happily making gross noises for hours. And while I do not begrudge those children their hours of fun, neither do I wish to learn about frogs using their eyeballs to swallow their food before I’ve had mine. Food that is.

And that was one of the tamer factoids.

Since real life was off the table (amazing how often that happens in my world), I decided to delve into the land of fiction for frog info. Turns out there are a lot of frogs in fiction, including Frog Thor (I kid you not), various frogs who are really princes, and Trevor (of H. Potter fame). You may have fun making your own list of frogs and toads if you have nothing better to do at the moment. I’ll wait.

The most important frogs (and by “most important” I mean “my favorites”) are Kermit the Frog and his nephew Robin. They sing. They dance. They are adorable. They are kind-hearted. They invite self-centered pigs into their lives. And not once have they talked about using their eyes to swallow their food.

Hope any frogs you encounter today manage to keep their hygienic, digestive, and reproductive habits to themselves.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Most of my friends are a little crazy. Generally they are crazy in a good sort of way, so we have reciprocal wackiness.

You know, just a little on the What? side of things.

But every now and then, one of them will cross over into true Have You Lost Your Mind?

One of my friends went to Are You Insane Land this weekend.

A while ago, she tried to get me to participate in a 5K with her. Since I was pretty sure the “K” didn’t stand for kayaking or knitting, I decided to pass lest the K stand for “killing me, here.”

Yesterday, this same friend sent me the following message—on my beloved Fitbit: “Contemplating Half Pig on May 1. Interested in the challenge?”

To be clear, she did not mean eating half a pig, but rather participating in the Flying Pig Half Marathon which is like a marathon only the ambulances are closer to the starting line.

Of course I was interested. Interested in how she thought that someone who walks about 5 miles (total) on a REALLY active day might be able to perambulate that far. All at once. Without falling so far behind that the race ended days before I get to the finish line.

My response to her—not on my beloved Fitbit since I don’t want to offend it: “When did they start allowing bicycles in the Pig?”

So far no response. But to be fair, I only sent the message a few minutes from now. (Yes, you read that correctly.)

I’ll keep you posted.

From the comfort of my 10,000 steps per day goal.

Love, Mom

P.S. Who did you share DearKidLoveMom.com with today? Well, what are you waiting for?

Dear Kid,

Once upon a time (and by once upon a time I mean 1776) our country was called the United Colonies. While this worked in the initial start-up phase of the country, once there was an IPO the founders realized they had to come up with a snazzier name.

So the Founding Fathers contracted the hottest marketing firm of the time to brainstorm and then market test fun and memorable names for the young country. Unfortunately, marketing was in its infancy as a profession and the FFs engaged Bob the Marketer.

Calling himself Bob the Marketer may have been Bob’s best marketing job ever, because Bob was really a pig farmer. Which meant that all Bob’s market research was done with his pigs. And while pigs are smart, they are not known for caring much about what the country is called. Or maybe they do care but just can’t communicate it very well. Or maybe they communicate very well and Bob just wasn’t good at interpreting. Whatever the true case, Bob the pig farmer didn’t have a lot of useful input when it came to branding the country.

Bob presented three alternatives to the Continental Congress:

• A Bunch of Folks Who Got Together in America
• Petunia (after his favorite pig)
• United States of America

Bob actually threw that last one in there as a joke, but all sorts of jokes get taken seriously and this was one of them.

On September 9, 1776 the Continental Congress (another group that could have benefited from working with Bob the Marketer) formally declared the name of our nation to be the United States of America.

This made everyone (except Petunia) happy. The flag makers were happy because they got to make more flags. The mint was happy because it got to print new money. And Congress was happy because it actually got something done (modern day lawmakers know nothing of this).

Petunia was unhappy as she felt slighted by an entire country. But as has been pointed out, Bob’s porcine communication skills left a lot to be desired so he never knew.

Happy Naming Day, America.

Love, Mom