Dear Kid,

The subject is woodpeckers because, well, no reason really except that we were talking about woodpeckers yesterday.

There are a lot of woodpeckers in the world. About 200 species, to be specific. And you can find them pretty much everywhere as long as everywhere doesn’t include Australia, New Zealand, or Madagascar.

Woodpeckers smash their beaks into trees and logs about a zillion times a minute in order to find lunch and/or carve out a place to live. You might think all this would cause headaches, but it doesn’t (as you know). You might also think it would cause tons of sawdust and flying woodchips which might be dangerous to the aforementioned avian driller. You’d be right about the sawdust but not so much about the danger, because woodpeckers have special bristles around their nostrils designed to keep out flying pieces of wood. They also have an extra eyelid (which they can see through—how cool is that!) that helps protect and clean their little eyeballs.

Most woodpeckers have zygodactyl feet which is a fancy way of saying that shopping for shoes is beyond difficult because they have two toes facing front and two toes facing back.

Woodpecker tongues are generally about 3 times the length of their bills. Some woodpeckers have barbed tongues to help yank bugs out of tricky hiding spots. When they aren’t using their tongues, woodpeckers store them between the back of their skull and the skin at the back of their heads. Because where else would you store your overlong tongue?

Woodpeckers are generally monogamous, because how easy is it to find a girlfriend when you have zygodactyl feet and a tongue you have to store behind your brain?

In the wild, woodpeckers live between 4 and 15 years, and up to 20-30 years under ideal conditions (and by “ideal conditions” I mean treat their wives like the queens they are.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

The sound of a woodpecker hard at work is (imo) a delightful sound, confirming that little bugs are becoming lunch for a hungry bird. (Unless, the birds are pounding into the house siding rather than a tree in which case it’s a terrifying sound, right up there with the sound of dollars running out of my bank account.) Either way, it’s a lot of woodpecker headbanging.

Have you ever thought about why they don’t get headaches?

Seriously, you’d think there would be tiny little avian pharmacies all over with the amount they bang their heads. Up to 20 times per second to be precise.

And while they don’t have big brains (the term “bird brain” comes to mind), there are very few documented cases of woodpecker concussions.

It was that thinking that led to the creation of the Q collar, the concussion prevention collar that is being tested, vetted, and otherwise used to try to reduce concussions during sporting events.

The idea is not to reduce the size of the players’ brains, but rather to help secure the athletes’ brains in place. It turns out that woodpeckers’ brains are held in place with muscles and bones (and an extra eyelid). Basically a bird brain seat belt/helmet.

A couple of high schools in the Cincinnati area have been testing the Q collar. Researchers are specifically focusing on football and girls’ soccer (not that we know anyone who got a concussion while playing either of those). The collar somehow increases the amount of blood around the brain to help hold those brain cells in place. The researchers are seeing fantastic results which is wonderful news.

The moral of the story is seat belts are important in the car and inside your head.

One other important fact: a woodpecker will only make straight strikes to a tree. No side-to-side movements helps prevent head trauma.

The next step for the researchers (obviously) is to figure out how to get athletes to always get hit straight on.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

It’s January. You probably knew that. You probably also know that January is named after Janus, the Roman god with two heads (one looking forward and one looking back). But I’m betting there is a lot you don’t know about the first month of the year.

Like it wasn’t always the first month. If you go back far enough in history, it wasn’t a month at all since months hadn’t been invented. (Fast forward a little, please.) Then January became the 11^th month which confused everyone in Times Square.

The Anglo-Saxons called January “Wulfmonath” because hungry wolves came scavenging during the winter. Anyone who has ever fed a teenager will understand this perfectly.

Speaking of food, January is National Soup Month, National Hot Tea Month, National Oatmeal Month, National Slow Cooking Month, and National Baking Month. In other words, it’s COLD!

According to My Friend the Internet, more couples separate or get divorced in January than in any other month. This makes no sense, because it’s COLD and snuggling is warm.

There are two zodiac signs in January, Capricorn and Aquarius. This is important to know if you want to check your horoscope. The birthstone for January is garnet. I don’t know why, but it’s a pretty stone, so why not. January’s flower is carnation (meh) which is also the state flower of Ohio.  Tulips are better but none of the months have claimed tulips, which is their mistake.

This year, there are two full moons in January. The first was the Full Wolf Moon (which you saw on January 1^st if you were paying attention). The second will be the Full Old Moon (also a Blue Moon) which will rise on January 31^st (whether or not you are paying attention). Both of them are supermoons which means they are gorgeous and worth sticking your nose out into the cold to see.

Happy January!

Enjoy the rest of the month, kiddo.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

It may be corny, but today we celebrate National Popcorn Day. No one knows who invented the day, but here we are. (And yes, in case you were wondering, I checked and there is a Popcorn Board but they have no idea where the idea of National Popcorn Day came from. They aren’t about to argue the point, but they didn’t invent it.)

We, the People, are fans of popcorn (on National Popcorn Day and every other day). In fact, we eat more than 17 billion quarts of popcorn in the US. Not all at once.

A popcorn kernel can pop up to three feet in the air if it’s not covered during the popping. This would be dumb because popcorn would end up everywhere except in the bowl meaning you’d have no snack and lots of cleaning. Which sounds like a bad trade to me.

Warning! Do not store popcorn in the refrigerator. The frig will dry out the moisture in unpopped kernels and without the moisture, the popcorn won’t pop. And if it’s already popped, all I can say is cold popcorn. Ick.

In ancient times, people would make popcorn by heating sand in a fire and then stirring popcorn kernels in the sand. This is not a recipe I recommend. Unless you like sand in your popcorn.

Not all popcorn is the same. While the kernels look the same, popcorn pops into two shapes: “snowflake” (which pops bigger and therefore is used at most movie theaters) and “mushroom.” The shape has no impact on the taste or lack thereof.

Popcorn is a whole grain, containing the germ, the endosperm, and the outer hull (pericarp). It also has protein, vitamins, and minerals although the amount depends on how much popcorn you eat. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s a good excuse for snacking.

Happy National Popcorn Day! Excuse me while I make some popcorn to celebrate.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Did you think things had gotten better? Wrong.

Stupidity is running rampant.

Remember when eating cinnamon was the Stupid Stunt of the Day? Bad idea. Really bad.

And then we had Krokodil which was a version of heroine that pretty much guaranteed death. Bad idea. Really bad. Really, really bad. The only good news (if you can call it that) is that most people didn’t (don’t?) have access or interest in trying it.

Now we’ve got some new (and frankly terrifying) trends. These are bad, bad, bad ideas.

Vodka eyeballing is a new—and incredibly stupid—way of getting drunk. You ready for this? People are pouring vodka directly from the bottle even into their eyes. You heard me. Directly. Into. Their. Eyes. The idea is that there a ton of blood vessels in your eye so alcohol is quickly absorbed. Ta-da—super quick buzz. Who cares about things like cornea scars and burns or blindness?

While athletes might not go for vodka eyeballing (after all, if you’re of legal age, who cares if you have alcohol on your breath), some of them are overdosing on supplements. The challenge is that some of the supplements available on the market don’t really help any more than the old fashioned supplements (and by “old fashioned supplements” I mean food), and can cause cramping, weight gain, increased blood pressure, and heart problems. But don’t worry. You’ll look like a stud drinking them.

It’s actually even worse. Because creatine which is found in many of the most popular protein powders and supplements, can cause problems in higher doses. And by problems I mean blood acidity (which draws calcium from bones) and kidney stones formed by the excess calcium. Fabulous.

And now we have a whole new level of Stupid Stunts, and it’s called the Tide Pod Challenge. Note: In this case “Challenge” is neither aspirational nor benign. Teens are challenging each other to eat Tide Pods. This is stupid, incredibly dangerous, and doesn’t even taste good. Note #2: Detergent can kill you if ingested. Your innards are not a washing machine.

If you know anyone trying any of these idiot moves (or even thinking about trying any of these idiot moves), please, please, please intervene.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I’ve talked about elephants before here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, but I haven’t talked very much about bulldogs except here, here, and here. It seems a fitting time to share with you

They were originally bred in England for bull baiting and were bred to be low to the ground and have lots of wrinkles. While we now think of all those wrinkles as adorable (or adorabull if you prefer) the folds were to help block flying blood from getting in the dog’s eyes during the fight. Yuck. Their wrinkles need to be wiped regularly to avoid infections and accumulation of Ick.

Bulldogs are very popular mascots meaning Uga, the mascot of the University of Georgia, is just one of many. But (imho) they’re an odd choice, because they’re not big on exercise and they have all sorts of respiratory issues. They also tend to suffer from hip dysplasia.

Bulldogs are (new word alert) brachycephalic which means short of snout and large of head. They are not water dogs. In fact, they’re in danger of drowning. Between their smooshed faces and under bite they are also generally gassy, snore and snort, drool and fart.

On the plus side, they are cute, friendly, independent, and self-confident. And they’re happy to cuddle up with their people.

Roll Tide.

Love, Mom