• The Thing About Life

    Family Squabbles

    You need to know that we never mean to argue in front of you; for that matter, we never mean to argue. I would also like to assure you that no matter what your mother and I are arguing about, it is not your fault. Your mother and I have very strong characters; it is a big part of why I married your mother in the first place, and it continues to be why I love her.

  • The Things You Do

    You Are Your Father’s Son

    Dear Xander, Based on feedback garnered from the readers of this blog (in other words, your mother), I shall keep my letters to you shorter and sharper. Your mother also has some opinion of your character development. Besides some of the other characteristics and behaviour you exhibit that take after me, she has noticed in recent months that both you and your father (me) seem to get into trouble with your mother at around the same time; she finds herself scolding you about something, and then scolding ME about 2 or 3 minutes later, for an unconnected yet related incident. For example: Your mother (to you): “XANDER TAY! Why did…

  • The Things You Do

    The History of Your Name

    Dear Xander, I Not Monkey Tay! Just before you turned 3, your parents had a tendency to compare your disobedient, uncooperative self to the behaviour of a monkey. Your mother, in particular, would ask you if your name was Monkey Tay (among other personality disorders evidenced in the audio recording above) instead of Xander Tay whenever you misbehaved, to which your response would always be an angry “NO, I AM NOT MONKEY. I AM XANDER!” (I should, at this point, extend my apologies to our primate cousins for such a discriminatory remark, in case one day scientific progress allows the events documented in the various Planet of the Apes to…