Willie
and Teddy's Excellent Adventure
We're in mid-winter break! Don't you think that since it is mid-winter break our parents should stop bugging us to go outside, for mercy's sake? Sheesh -- it's WINTER, that means it's too COLD to go outside! Yeah, that's the ticket.... don't remind my parents that in February there is almost always this warm snap, you'd almost think that pitchers-and-catchers were getting ready to report....
We both had in-class parties on Valentine's day; Teddy's was out-and-out a Valentine's Day party but in Willie's class they try to connect it with places we're learning about, so we've had an Australia and Islands party, and this time it was Europe, and Willie ate crepes! (Mommy was the cookie-decorating lady in Teddy's class's party, so probably most of the kids like her right now...all that sugar.)
Another tooth down and out! See pictures for details. Suffice it to say that the relationship between Willie and The Tooth Fairy is getting more contentious and surreptitious all the time.
On the plus side, along with fewer teeth have come fewer lice. Matter of fact, they seem to be gone. It wasn't so bad. The toughest part was trying to avoid Teddy's head as the top of it was aimed directly at you, along with his battle cry of HeadLiiiiiiiiiicccceeee!
We stayed up reeeeeeeaaalllly late on Friday night but it's not really our fault; our shabbat guests stayed late, because all the grownups were yakking so much. It was almost the next day by the time we went to bed.
But speaking of the next day, Willie got to work with "Scratch" with our friend Russell (this is a "teaching" programming language, see http://scratch.mit.edu/ for details). He even put his first program up on the web site, but the editors of this page have not yet received his permission to publish the link to that program. Stay tuned (or not). A side effect of Russell coming over is that his daughter comes too, and that means, cookies have to be made, and it was so.
So we are working away at our usual tasks of re-reading our favorite comic books (did Teddy tell you that his ban on reading Calvin & Hobbes has been lifted?) and deciding when and whether to get on each others' nerves. But all in all it's pretty quiet -- nothing like the excitement of last week (we forgot to tell you) when Papa kind of by accident put serrano peppers on a hot pan and the whole place got full of dense smoke that made us all cough and practically choke. Mommy says she hasn't had that much fun since the first time they cooked with fish oil.
Check out our Monopoly game. Have you ever noticed that in all these years mommy hardly ever wins any games of any kind? It's a weird thing.
So, which Home Alone movie are they on now? 17 or something like that? What, whatever one they're on, I'm ready for my casting call for Home Alone 18--Ants in the Pants.
This rotten child actor has nuthin on me.
Papa was stabbing around my mouth with that tree-sized Stim-u-dent and next thing I knew, one of my molars was hanging by a thread and he just went and yanked it out. I'm never letting that guy near my mouth again. And to add insult to injury, I hid my tooth from the tooth fairy (who I suspect is Papa), and the tooth fairy didn't take my tooth or leave any money. Bah! Sorry for the bloody spit picture, but you've got to document this stuff properly.
Teddy and Mommy had a marathon game of Monopoly on Sunday. Teddy had Boardwalk and Park Place and both of them had so much money from endless circling the board that they agreed that double hotels would be acceptable, and that's when it happened--Mommy landed on Park Place ($3500 rent) and then she rolled snake-eyes and landed on Boardwalk ($4000 rent) and even that didn't quite bankrupt her, but her next time round the board--BAM--Boardwalk again, GAME OVER!
Copyright © 1997-2008 The Berman Brothers--Willie and Teddy. All rights reserved.
Hey, click the pears picture above to check out our friend Leslie's Watercolors, and BUY THEM!!!
Hey papa, where's my $2.50 for my haircut! Where's the top of my head? So I got home the other day itching the side of my head, and papa got suspicious and good thing too because when he started looking closely there were little guys with legs camped out in my hair, so we went to the downstairs bathroom and bzzzzzz, bzzzzzzz, bbbzzzzzzzz, there went my hair. Then out came the really super fine lice combs and now I think I don't have lousey hair anymore.
Side view: it's short. But you know what? It grows. I'm just sad that it didn't get quite long enough for a pony tail.
Did you know that you can make a arrowheads for target practice from the tops of spaghetti-o's cans or from the top of baked beans cans? I was wondering if you can make from the tops of chili beans cans too because I want to get in on some of that bow and arrow stuff. 
Okay, so here's the deal. Teddy came home with lice, and what does papa do? Cuts my hair too. What's the big idea? Actually I didn't mind, my hair was getting really long and hard to get a comb through, but this checking for bugs with those really small combs is really a drag. Cut it out already!
What a ripoff! It snowed on a vacation day, so we didn't get a day off from school. We want a raincheck!
Well that snow just means that we can stay in our pajamas all day. All week maybe. Aw snap---we've still got school.
Preview of things to come--my first prom fer instance.
Carmen Miranda? Anybody? No? Crash absorbant helmet? No? Pillow on me noggin?
Uuuuugggghhhh, I can't believe I ate sooooo many potato chips--never again. Too much soda, uuuuuggggghhhhh!
Matzoh is the new chicken soup--I feel better all ready.
I'm not sleeping tonight after my whole can of pepsi with sugar all to myself. Mmmm, I can still feel it tingling inside me and my fingers are tapping and I just keep smiling and bouncing. Must. Have. More.
Finally, I got my P.h.D., and it's about time. Papa was convinced that it would never come. Just because I sent in my self addressed stamped envelope to 'me want my phd' about 9 months ago and we had heard nothing since, I don't know why he didn't think it would come.
And looky loo! My diploma in the flesh. The picture on the left is the top view of my mortor board. I brought the PHD ID card to school to get it laminated. 
Papa is trying to relive his youth where he had the biggest hair in the bunch. The one nice thing about when his hair is so big is that it is really soft and fluffy. Occasionally though he hides pointy pencils behind his ears and you don't know they're there until you've patted him and OUCH! Maybe he's just trying to join the 
For those of you concerned about the safety of this 'dropping bears' stunt, there was a highly partial observer making sure that no bears were harmed in the making of these pictures. Of course, papa's Teddy Bear really is not so fearsome anymore, except his cold eyes, BRRRR, you don't want to come into contact with those.
LOOKOUT BELOW!
3-2-1, release! SPLAT! Not really. I'd never do that to Clubby!
Today I (Teddy) has a youth group activity after hebrew school at a bowling alley which was pretty fun, but the bestest part was that I got PEPSI! and drank the whole thing. Mmmmmm. 
Yup, it's closing in on midnight, and we're still going strong!
BOOO!!!! HISSSSSSS!!!! You people said no more bathroom pictures, and HERE ARE MORE BATHROOM PICTURES! HEY, WAIT, we said there were no pictures this week--what gives? No pictures of us? Aw nuts, beaten on a technicality. Okay, get it over with. Towel rods. One's a double, and mommy doesn't think it's wide enough. Neener neener neener!
Mmmmmm, marshmallows. But now, I (willie) have found something even BETTER! DING DONGS! Why was I never informed that these existed. You owe me 10 1/2 years worth of Ding Dongs!
Photographic evidence: we got out during winter break, barely. 
We took a ferry to Bainbridge Island to visit our friends Halle and Larsen.
And to eat huge hamburgers.
And to get all lovey dovey. To love you, to kiss you...
LET ME OUT OF HERE! How does this window open. Can I swim?
Here's Halle and Larsen.
And check out my goofy glasses. I couldn't buy them because they weren't the right prescription.
Ho hum, just eating my gum--whoa, what the...where did willie come from? (Good work Scotty, now beam Teddy up, but leave the gum for me!)
More work on our bionicle bucket. I (willie) managed to make a starship enterprise replica out of bionicle parts, only it is black instead of dirty--looks more sleek in my opinion.
We are always showing Mommy the things we are creating, so she showed me the thing she has been creating--a sweater for cousin Marissa (formerly and still familiarily known as the noisy baby). Of course I had to try it on first, just to make sure it would fit and stuff.
Now according to Bloom County, the way to hunt liberals is to shout out things like 'socialized medicine' and 'gun control', and then KABLAMMERS--right between the eyes. Do you think Papa will fall for it? Probably!
Speaking of Papa, he said that they would be taking showers in the new bathroom last week--FALSE! Before he gave anybody a chance, he was working on the sink.
Nice, but isn't it missing something?
That's better. Kind of hard to turn on the other way.
Anyway, as I was saying, right after he finished the sink, up went the masking, and look look look, what's this? Mommy is working in the bathroom? It's paint.
It's BLUE paint. 
And what else? A medicine cabinet! So what the heck else do we need? A towel bar and doors on the big cabinet. That is all. Commence showering, and brushing teeth, and shaving, and other stuff. And no more pix of the bathroom. Thank you.