Dear Kid,

It’s Opening Day in Cincinnati.

It’s the day everyone most people many people turn from normal humans into Raving Reds Fans.

Many businesses close in celebration of Opening Day. In companies that don’t close, many people become afflicted with a mysterious 24 hour illness. (The less virulent variety attacks just after lunch. Did I mention that the game starts at 4:10p?)

To be prepared for Opening Day, you need to know several things.

First there is the parade. (Translation: The streets downtown are going to be the very definition of awful.) If you’re going to the parade, you should be there already. If you’re not going to the parade or the game, avoid downtown if you possibly can. If you have to go anywhere near downtown, I suggest either parachuting in or teleportation.

Then there’s the Opening Day Game. It’s baseball. I’ll leave it to people who spend more time than I do watching baseball to comment on the game.

Then, because magic sometimes happens, sports enthusiasts get to watch the Final Game of March Madness (even though we’re in April).

And because the game starts at 9:20pm (WHO STARTS MAJOR SPORTING EVENTS THAT LATE????), I’m guessing many people will not be early to work on Tuesday.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Well, it’s about time, dontcha think?

It has taken weeks of discussion (and by “discussion” I mean conversation, debate, begging, cajoling, wheedling, sweet talking, tête-à-têtes, and only slightly veiled threats) but Dad and I have finally decided to get another puppy.

We’ll be able to bring him home next week near the end of the week. He’s a little guy right now, but we expect he’ll grow to about 40 pounds. I’m hoping he won’t get any bigger than that—although one never knows, do one?

He’s a pit bull mix of who knows what but a little smaller in the chest that most pits. At least, we think so. We’re not exactly pit bull experts and he’s still a baby, so it’s hard to know.

His coloring is light brown and we’re still working on a name. I was thinking of Coffee or Latte or Caramel, but I’m open to suggestions. Thoughts?

I mean besides saying, “Happy April Fool’s Day, Mom”?

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

You get an extra day. Because I “oops-ed” and said that yesterday was Absolutely Incredible Kids Day. The AIKD people were kind enough to point out that I was a day ahead of schedule. So in case (horrors!) you didn’t read about Absolutely Incredible Kids Day yesterday (when it wasn’t), you should read about it today (when it is).

I am also joyfully celebrating Pre-Saint Patrick’s Day (which I can do because apparently I have a hitherto unknown skill called Celebrating Early). Pre-Saint P’s Day means wearing a light shade of green. And drinking green tea. And thinking kind thoughts about Kermit. I know this because I just made it up.

Speaking of things to celebrate joyfully (because celebrating miserably seems just wrong), I went to the gym yesterday (that’s not the part to celebrate). As I was leaving, I noticed a bright light outside. My first thought was ‘Yark! Is there a major storm I don’t know about?’ My second thought was ‘Did they change the lighting in the parking lot?’ My third thought was ‘What should we have for dinner?’

It was at that moment I realized what I was seeing—daylight. As in longer days plus Daylight Saving Time. Actual light from the heavens. The angels sang (to be fair, it might have been a YouTube video). I was so excited I almost rolled around on the ground like a happy puppy. (You’ll be glad to know I restrained myself.)

I love that it stays light longer. I love that it’s still bright when I get home. It makes me feel that all is right with the world and anything is possible.

Love, Mom

P.S. In case you’re wondering, the answer is we had leftovers for dinner.

P.P.S. We think you’re incredible every day. Happy Absolutely Incredible Kids Day anyway.

Dear Kid,

Today is Absolutely Incredible Kids Day. Which makes no sense, because I think you’re absolutely incredible every day.

Absolutely Incredible Kids Day (or AIK, pronounced “ache” if your kids are not behaving) was created in 1997 by Camp Fire USA to (and I quote) “honor our nation’s youth by asking adults to write letters of encouragement and inspiration to the incredible kids in their lives.” Which makes absolutely no sense because I write to you every day (well, almost every day).

Although I don’t know how many of these letters are of encouragement and inspiration.

Having now found out about this thing called Absolutely Incredible Kids Day (#AIKD—yes, it has a hashtag so it must be important), I immediately leapt into investigative mode (by which I mean I read one page of a website and started making things up. And by “making things up” I mean decided to state my own opinions.).

Five Reasons to Write a Letter to Your Kid

1. No child is ever too young or too old to get a letter from someone else. Ever. #AIKD seems to be aimed at having parents write to younger children. I say everyone needs to take out a pen and jot down some love. Just because your children are no longer in single digits doesn’t mean they don’t need parental love.
2. Kids can’t interrupt a letter. I know. You’ve tried. You’ve rolled your eyes. You’ve written back. You’ve offered guidance and commentary. You may even—although I choose not to believe it—have stopped reading partway through one of my letters. But you’ve never managed to interrupt one.
3. Letters are longer than a text. Texts are a short-hand written conversation. Sort of. Letters take more thought, more…words. Letters can be saved and treasured. No one is ever going to take out a smudged and much read text.
4. Letters are more formal. Not necessarily tuxedo formal. (Have you read any of my letters? It’s pretty much a tuxedo-free zone, here. No one is ever going to confuse my writing with Shakespeare or Milton.) But they are more formal, more weighty, than your average teenager’s grunt.
5. Kids need to be reminded that they are loved and cared for. Often. Shouldn’t they already know? Probably. Possibly. But it’s important to remind them. Because it’s too easy to get caught up in the drama of the day and forget the important stuff.

We love you, kiddo. Now and always.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Once again, it is Pi Day. Amazingly, it comes around every year.

You might think that I have already shared all there is to know about Pi (the number, not the sister person). Turns out, you’d be incorrect, my friend. Because after hours of research (and by “hours” I mean 3.14159265 seconds), I have found Wildly Interesting Information you don’t know about the number Pi.

Are you sitting down? Because this one is a stunner.

Pi had to be invented.

Not just Back In The Day when people were sitting around making up numbers (“What shall we call that thing that comes after 2 and before 4? 3? 3? Does everyone agree? 3 it is.”). Pi was invented in relatively modern times (and by “relatively modern times” I mean 1706).

Here’s what happened.

Everyone (and by “everyone” I mean relatively few people) knew that that there was a ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter and that the ratio was a constant but no one had come up with a cutesy name for it.

Meanwhile, in Wales, a math teacher named William Jones was having a bad day. He was completely out of useless ways to torment his students. So he invented Pi, and in the worst example of teaching anywhere introduced it 20 minutes before the test, making it a concept that could be approached but not reached in time for a good grade (that’s really clever which you’ll get if you re-read it several times and think mathematically).

William Jones was the first person to use a symbol to represent 22/7; Leonhard Euler, a Swiss mathematician, may have been the first to use the symbol pi (sometime before 1783 because that’s when he died).

Pi is an irrational number. This is not the reason it is your sister’s nickname, although it is an interesting coincidence.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Happy the first Monday of Daylight Saving Time. This is the day it really hurts. Because for many of us, weekend time is different. A few minutes extra sleep, a couple minutes one way or the other, are not a problem, not an issue.

But today we return to real life. To obligations. To appointments. To Being On Time. And our bodies have not adjusted.

So, being the kind of Mom I am, I’ve decided to bring you some little known factoids about DST.

If you’re involved in international business (or international friendship), beware. Different countries begin (and end) Daylight Saving Time on different days. Meaning what was a 2pm call last week is not a 2pm call this week. Consult The Google for local (here or there) time.

DST used to be even more confusing than it is now. (Now: Oh, look. My phone changed time. Guess it’s time to get up. Then: Oh, look. The headline in the newspaper says we are supposed to change our clocks. Is that now or tonight? Or last night? Or tomorrow? And which way do we change it? Spring forward and fall back? Or fall forward and I’ll catch you? Or always back? Never mind. I’ll watch the 6 o’clock news tonight and figure it out.)

Back in Ancient History (and by “ancient history” in this case I mean the 1950s and 1960s), each locality was allowed to start and end DST whenever it wanted. Which meant you could easily cross 453 time zones just driving to work. This was pretty much the textbook definition of “Arrrrgggh!” Also, it confused people. Enter the Uniform Time Act of 1966 (no, this had nothing to do with what people wore to work, just when they got there.

When we first moved to the Midwest, time in the state of Indiana was, um, different. Some parts of the year it was the same time in Indianapolis as in Cincinnati. Other times it wasn’t. This is because Indiana didn’t observe DST. Which made it hard to figure out what time to get to the airport if you decided to fly from there. They fixed this in 2006 so Hoosier time is now much more consistent with the rest of the universe.

Penguins do not worry about things like Daylight Savings Time because they don’t have any daylight to save when it’s winter and no reason to save it in the summer when they have daylight 24/7. Mostly they worry about lunch, not being lunch, and staying warm. The research stations in Antarctica observe DST anyway so that they are synchronized with their supply stations.

This might be my favorite: In September 1999, the West Bank was on DST and Israel had just switched back to standard time. A group of terrorists on the West Bank set time bombs and smuggled them to three comrades in Israel. No one said the comrades were geniuses. The bombs went off as planned, but the comrades didn’t understand the “as planned” time, and boom! went the terrorists as the bombs exploded an hour earlier than they expected.

In a set of “what are you gonna do?” unintended consequences, Daylight Saving Time impacts trains. Trains are not allowed to leave the station before their scheduled departure time. So in the fall, all Amtrak trains that are running on time stop dead still at 2am and wait an hour (this is called efficiency). In the spring, all trains instantly become an hour behind at 2am (or sometimes an hour further behind). In this case, the engineer shrugs and keeps going. This is also called efficiency.

Daylight Saving Time can mess up important things, too. For example (this has really happened), if twins are born under the right circumstances, their birth order will be reversed. If Twin 1 is born in the fall at 1:58am and the sibling is born a few minutes later (oops, change the clock, fall back) it is earlier (perhaps 1:10am) when Twin 2 is born. Absolutely no one cares about this except A) the twins who will have their entire lives to argue about which one is older and B) inheritance lawyers in the middle ages when so much of inheritance was based on birth order.

Hope you have an easy time adjusting to the hour.

Love, Mom