Or at least a 'warm'

Sometimes when I'm coming up with lunch notes it helps to think like a child would think.  (Believe me...that's easy for some of us!)

That's a perfectly logical train of thought describing a perfectly illogical name for an illness.  And I can totally see my 4 year old coming up with that, or my 10 year old jokingly asking the question.  I'm not automatically cold when I have a cold, and being out in the cold can't cause a cold on its own, so it just doesn't make sense.

Which is another reason I feel sorry for people trying to learn to speak English!

Do birds like veggies?

It's tough to get kids to eat veggies, so when you find one they like you need to make sure they eat a lot of it.  Carrots are one of my girls' favorite veggies, and we buy them in all shapes and sizes...baby carrots, carrot wedges, big long carrots with the stalks intact, etc.  Now that my girls are old enough to peel raw carrots on their own they have them for snacks a lot - mostly for the fun of peeling in my humble opinion!

I'm not sure if parrots eat carrots or not, but if they do then I wonder if they would also eat them cooked...since my girls sure won't!  But some would argue that raw is healthier anyway, so it works for us.

Also, if you want to make my bro & sis-in-law happy and help some parrots in need go here:

http://www.the-oasis.org/donatenow.php

(But please don't send any carrots!)

A strange combination

I don't want you to jump to conclusions here, but this udderly hilarious lunch note was full of no bull...

The kangamoo is the only animal that is a native of Australia and the South West United States.  It is unique because it has not only the familiar kangaroo-like pouch, but also cow-like udders hidden within the pouch.  This is great for the kangamoo's young ones (called joeycalfs) who spend their days in the pouch having milk squirting wars and milk squirting distance contests.

Hey...that would make a great name for a band.  Captain Kangamoo!

A fast little singer

Celebrity names can always be fodder for jokes.  Since jokes are great for lunch notes matching the two is fun.

Taylor is a very talented singer and songwriter, someone whose music is very accessible to adults and teens/tweens alike.  We first saw her several years ago as a 16 or 17 year old opening for Tim & Faith on their SoulIISoul 2 tour.  We didn't know much about her, but her performance won us over.  We took our girls to see her in concert a couple years ago and made it a surprise - we didn't tell them where we were going on the way so they were very happy.

I like my notes to be truthful though, so can someone please find out if Taylor really is quick or not?

It's lunch time sports fans!

I coach soccer for one or both of my girls' teams each spring and fall, and this spring their ages land correctly again so that they'll both be able to play on my team.  Soccer sign ups are happening now, which reminded me of this note:

It is always fun, whether doing it at a formal practice or with your siblings in the backyard.  But the backyard does have it's hazards...our dog has taken to digging craters out there lately which could lead to some twisted ankles.  Not to mention the the brown squishy mines she leaves everyday...extra poop patrol duty is definitely necessary for playing soccer out back.  We don't enjoy cleaning that stuff out of our carpets!

President Daddy

Today is President's Day.  So this lunch note is very appropriate:

Yeah, I think life would be full of drama if that were the case.  Limo rides to school, secret service following you around, sleep overs at the White House, having a First Daughter title...  Things would be very different, and a bit more stressful, but hopefully fun.  At least there's a pretty cool playground on the White House grounds now!

Bunny bank?

The whole concept of a piggy bank is pretty strange - why did the pig become the ideal form for a place for children to store their money?  I always think of an image of a piggy bank being smashed on the ground or broken with a hammer to get to the money.  Does that ever really happen?  Every piggy bank I've ever seen has a hole on the bottom with a little rubber stopper so you can access the money.  But I guess if you're really trying to save money then the break-only method is a good deterrent and keeps your money safe for longer periods of time.

But really, wouldn't a bunny shaped piggy bank be called a bunny bank?

Lunch note food groups

This was a day when their lunches were full of grapes.  Grapes rock.  They taste best cold, but don't necessarily need to be refrigerated, so they keep well in lunches without a cold pack.  Plus when you're sitting at the lunch table you can squirt your friends with grape juice if you bite down just right!

Now if only my daughters liked grape tomatoes...

Lean mean lunch note machine

We usually try to limit the junk in our kids' lunches - they often get at least a fruit or veggie or sometimes both.  This note must've been written on one of those days where there was more 'good' food than bad.

Don't know why I use the 'roses are red' thing so often in these notes.  I guess it just helps get the note started so my brain gets into the mode to come up with the rest.  I'll have to start using different colors though - roses can be any color you want these days!

Float like a butterfly...

What, you've never heard of space butterflies before?  I'm not surprised, since they're very shy and private creatures.  They're actually pretty fat and lazy too.  Strange, I know...an overweight butterfly?  Is that even possible?  Well, yes it is.

Think about it - when you see a butterfly here on Earth they have to work pretty hard to combat gravity.  Sure their bodies are light, but when they fly all they're doing is flapping flapping flapping.  There is no gliding or soaring or riding the wind like a bird.  If they don't flap then they plummet.

But a space butterfly has no gravity to contend with.  None at all!  So it's one flap and they're off to their destination.  That equals no calories burnt, and makes them very lazy and large.  Even the ones who live near the moon (to take advantage of the spacious cocoons of course) have much less gravity to deal with, so 4 or 5 moon flaps equals something like 40 or 50 Earth flaps.

But the fattest and laziest space butterflies of all are the ones that insist on using the moon rover left behind by Apollo 15 as their sole source of transportation!

A very subtle hint

Here's a lunch note that was fun...yet got a good point across!

It's not so much that I hate doing dishes, it's just that I'd rather be doing other things.  Plus, when the kids do certain chores they get a star on the chore chart.  Enough stars for the week equals a certain amount of allowance.  Let me tell you...when we first implemented this policy I didn't do dishes for weeks.  But now the kids seem less motivated to do dishes, even if their allowance suffers for it.  So it never hurts to send a reminder!

The keys to my lunch note success

Often when I get an idea for a note it snowballs into another one right away.  That's always a bonus...the next day's note is already written.  Usually when that happens it's based on a theme.

Obviously in this case the link was the word 'key'.  I thought about writing another one using monkey or hockey, but figured two was enough for this theme.

So what's a mule anyway?  It's a cross between a donkey and a horse.  I'm sure mules are generally not kept in cages...stables maybe, but not cages.  There must be a reason this particular mule was being held in a cage, and since it was trying to escape I'm sure it was in trouble.  Probably for being an ass!     ;-)

They have to grow up...

Birthdays come and birthdays go, but the end result is always the same - we age!  Getting older is awesome when you're a kid, but sometimes painful as an adult.  For us it's two-fold; as tough as it is for us to deal with our increasing ages, it can be even tougher to deal with our kids growing up.

I remember turning 10 very well, and being really happy that I was finally in double digits.  My daughter Allie is feeling the same way right now.  Having one was bad enough, but two...sheesh!  Oh well, at least there are two more behind them who won't be in double digits for a while!

Little armored one

I like to combine words for lunch notes sometimes, and they're often pretty silly.

Hmmm...could this be an autobiographical lunch note?  LOL.

Armadillo is a Spanish word meaning "little armored one".  They're actually kind of cute in a weird way, and some can even roll up into a perfectly round protective ball of armor like a giant rolly-polly.

This totally reminds me of one of my favorite episodes of Friends featuring Ross dressed as Santa's helper, the Holiday Armadillo.  Remember that one?

Classic episode, and that's a pretty amazing armadillo costume too.  Chandler steals Ross' thunder by dressing up as Santa, but then Ross convinces him to leave so he can teach Ben more about Jewish holiday traditions.  (Ben was played by Dylan & Cole Sprouse - the twins who went on to play on Disney Channel's Suite Life of Zach and Cody.)

But I digress.  This was another fun lunch note built around that single little word I made up.  Sometimes that's all it takes - come up with a silly word and the rest of the note is easy.

I'm not conceited at all!

I don't normally have to dress up for work thank goodness, but on occasion it is necessary.  And when I do...holy guacamole!

I figured as long as I was tooting my own horn I may as well push it a little further with the signature.  My kids may never know what I've sacrificed for them.  You know...turning down all those New York, L.A., and overseas modeling jobs just so I could spend more time with them.   ;-)

A smelly blog post

Animals are in my lunch notes a lot.  They are just so good at providing material and they're easy to write about if you have a good imagination.  Poor skunks though.  They are always the butt of jokes that have to do with rotten smells of any kind.  But the shoe definitely fits, so they have to wear it!

I've often wondered if skunks think their own skunk spray smells bad or not.  If so, then I would think they would spray it only as a last resort since they don't want to smell it either.  But if it doesn't bother them then they would spray away at the drop of a hat...kind of like the ones that live in our neighborhood seem to.

Also, do other rotten and yucky smells bother skunks as much as they would other animals, or are they pretty much immune to all bad smells by nature?  I have a friend whose mother-in-law has a pet skunk (de-sprayed of course), and it is not a pleasant animal to be around.  It's funny to me that skunks also have stinky personalities!

How do you sharpen one of those?

Some notes can create great visuals, as well as help your child develop problem solving skills.  Entertaining and practical!  Like this one:

Hopefully there are plentiful swordfish nearby...you know, for all those mermaids who are tangled in nets all over the ocean.  Or maybe mermaids should always carry a pocket swordfish...you know, the kind that folds up nice and neat?  Hmmm.  Not sure the swordfish would like that though.  And do mermaids even have pockets?       ;-)

Delicious lunch notes

Imagination is key to fuel notes if you want to keep them from being repetitious or boring.  It's funny because I'm usually trying to entertain myself too when I write them!

That would be awesome!  Flavors of all kinds, melt in your mouth yumminess...  But of course I knew I couldn't be the first with this idea, and of course I'm not.  A quick trip down Google lane showed many kinds of edible paper from rice paper to candy paper.  Even printable but edible paper!  Here's one such link.  http://www.tastyfotoart.com/EdiblePaper.htm.  Oh well, the note still rocks!

 

A quick one

I most likely came up with this lunch note while running late in the morning, needing a to write the notes for my daughters' lunches fast and get moving.  It's simple...but it cracks me up.

If only that were true - rhyming does not always equal good!  But it can often equal silly and fun.