Dear Kid,

In honor of graduation (yep, it’s today), we search Pinterest (and by “we” I mean Pi) for inspiring graduation ideas.

She decided we would make chocolate Reese’s mortar boards.

So Grandma and Grandpa peeled wrappers from about a million mini Reese’s cups, and you and I set up our assembly shop to manufacture create put together said hats. To be fair, Pi made the first one to show us how (followed immediately by Pi eating the first one).

In other news, the sheer volume of sugar in our house right now could send an entire country (a small one, but still) into diabetic shock.

Congrats (or Congrads) to all the graduates.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Have you been watching The Royals? Probably not, because you’ve probably been studying non-stop. I’m sure it’s not because you’ve been watching basketball, even if we are mid-March Madness in April.

I have now watched three episodes, which should be enough to make me an expert.

My Opinion: Stick with the basketball. I mean studying.

The Royals is not a great show. It doesn’t even manage to be a good show, although I keep watching and waiting for the fairy godmother of writing to fling her wand in and fix things.

I even went so far as to read a few reviews about it to see if I’d missed something. The only thing I missed was a great line written by Vicki Hyman of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com. Talking about the clothing on the show she wrote, “…outrageous fashions (there is hardly a frock that isn’t gynecological in nature)…”

I keep expecting The Royals to somehow turn into something fab. But it doesn’t. Unfortunately, I appear to be captivated, and turn from reruns of House and CSI to The Royals on Sunday evenings like the loyal subject I am.

Unless you are obsessed with outrageous hats at physics-defying angles, stick with schoolwork. I’ll stick with The Royals for a few more episodes and let you know if anything changes enough to disrupt your studying schedule.

Don’t bet on it.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Well, it’s March Madness.

SUNY Albany lost to Florida to the accompaniment of much yelling at the TV.This surprised pretty much no one as Albany was ranked dead last and Florida was ranked considerably higher (#1 is considerably higher than #last).

Almost all the Ohio teams lost as well. This surprised many people and broke many brackets. (It is considered unlucky to have your bracket broken as it means you will not win $1 billion. But don’t feel bad–the odds of creating a perfect bracket are one in nine quintillion* which are pretty big odds. Then throw in that these are college players and you’re better off betting on finding two identical snowflakes.)

Meanwhile, people who did not bet on March Madness will make all sorts of overdone bracket jokes on Facebook { }.

March Madness continues until April 5. Which means our television will take a lot more abuse over the next few weeks. (I wonder if I need to report TV abuse…)

The first NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament was in 1939 and had only eight teams. Now there are some number just short of a quintillion.

Sportswriters are having fun writing about a potential Cinderella Story, wherein a low ranked team might win. It is lovely that they are (correctly) assuming that predicting the winner is a fairy tale, but ever so wrong in the particulars. Basketball players almost always keep both shoes on their feet, the shoes have no heel to speak of, and while the shorts they wear these days are voluminous they will never be confused with a ballgown. Sportswriters clearly are not focused on fashion.

That pretty much exhausts my knowledge about basketball in general and March Madness in particular. Maybe I can find a guest blogger to write something useful as we get farther into the tournament. Or not.

Tanner is graduating today. Be sure to send Auntie M a congratulatory text.

Love, Mom