Monthly Archives: May 2012

B.Y.O.B.

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Piper wants a teddy bear. Not just any teddy bear will do. It has to be a Build-A-Bear and it has to grow from birth. Piper’s birthday is coming up.  A teddy bear is entirely possible, but I fear she has something more complicated in mind.

“My bear is being born right now,” she whispered to me at nap time. “He’s three minutes old.”

“Really?  How do you know?”

Piper rolls her eyes at my question. “I’m his mother. His Build-A-Bear mother. I know.”

“So your Build-A-Bear is growing right now?” I’m actually trying to follow her logic. There may be a real question in there somewhere that I need to address.

“Only if I buy him will he actually be built and grown. It’s like a daughter. Like you grew me. With a computer.”

“I didn’t pick you out on a computer, P. I grew you in my body,” I explain.

“Right. But you chose me. I remember.”

“You remember?”

“Yes. I was on the shelf waiting to be born. Then you came in and chose me. It was exactly like at Build-A-Bear.”

Hmm. I remember it a bit differently, but I’m pretty sure arguing will be futile.

I Scream. You Scream.

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A Piper is observant. She goes through the day like Yoda sprinkling her wisdom.

After a nature walk and scavenger hunt this afternoon, we stopped for ice cream. Piper slurped up her melting cup and turned her attention to my cone.

“Can I have a bite of your cone, Mommy?”

I had been licking down the chocolate chip ice cream to the perfect cone bite. You know the one. I handed it over. Piper happily crunched the cake cone. She watched me get the next bite ready.

“Here. You can have my cup,” Piper volunteered. “I’ll finish your cone.”

I looked at the melted vanilla mess.

“It tastes better when you share,” Piper assured me. It didn’t. But watching her on a summer day eating ice cream may have been worth it.

After ice cream, Piper went swimming. Then she came home to a bath and dinner. While she was soaking the chlorine out, I leaned over the tub and Piper traced my face with her pruned fingers. “You know how come I know you’re my mom?” she asked.

“Because I’m bathing you and making your favorite ravioli for dinner?” I guessed.

“No. You have those lines on your face and those dark things under your eyes. All moms have those. That’s how I know you’re mine.”

Just Keep Swimming. What Do We Do? We Swim.

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We spent yesterday at a water park. It was Piper’s first. She had no fear.  I kind of wish she’d had a tiny bit. Piper ran to the top of every slide and plunged herself down each tube with no idea of what would meet her at the bottom. She ran under waterfalls and laughed when she fell out of the float on the lazy river. There was no stopping her courage. It was terrifying. I’ve never been more proud.

Piper has been a little reluctant about the whole swimming thing. She’s wanted a float, water wings, and a life jacket. She’s taken swimming lessons and told me that “they just didn’t work.” All that changed yesterday afternoon. Sissy and Piper went into the three foot pool together to “work on” the swimming thing. Piper forgot her reluctance and just took off kicking. And just like that we have a swimmer. Within ten minutes she was diving to the bottom of the pool and racing her sister in laps. Sissy swims like a fish, but Piper wasn’t far behind.

To celebrate, they shared a chocolate milkshake.

Piper showed her true strength and beat her Sissy to the bottom of the cup.

More is More

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We’re on vacation this week. Piper spent an awesome day binging on pizza, splashing in the pool, playing board games with cousins, being doted on by grandparents, and playing at a park.  Three minutes after we’d returned to our room, she began complaining, “I’m so bored!  We never have any fun! No one plays with me!”

Poor thing.

Cousin Tay saved the day and jumped in to read Piper stories. But it’s never as simple as reading a book out loud with a Piper. There are questions. Many questions. Each plot twist must be dissected. What ifs abound. Characters have to renamed. You can hardly get through a sentence without commentary. Cousin Tay was patient. She met each of Piper’s demands. As I was putting Piper to bed later she said, “Tay is the best reader in the world. She gets me.”

 

Consider Us Orientated

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‘Tis the season for kindergarten orientation. Piper and I went last week. I brought along the 312 pieces of paperwork required for admission into the public schools in Montgomery County. Piper’s doctor, dentist, and therapist (okay, that’s a joke, she doesn’t have a therapist…yet) signed off on her readiness. Piper has been looking forward to orientation for months. She can’t wait to go to the same school as Sissy and walk together every morning.

When we arrived, they gave Piper a name tag and took her picture. Then they separated the parents from the kids. Some of the kids weren’t so thrilled about this, but Piper skipped off down the hallway leading the pack and called “Bye, Mom!” over her shoulder.

The kids were taken to do “fun” activities, which looked a little like “testing” to me. Piper aced the name writing and pattern part.

She impressed them equally by debating whether her art was more like Van Gogh or Monet. Hmmm.

I can’t say that the parents had as much fun. There weren’t any art projects. We weren’t allowed to eat the snack. We watched videos on how to properly drive through the “kiss and ride” lane and why backpacks on wheels are destroying civilization.  Then, we were told to quit our day jobs so that we could spend the summer doing skill and drill in hopes of possibly preparing our kindergartners for the first day. Piper is supposed to be reading at Level Four by the first day, whatever that means. Here is some of our summer homework:

Once Piper and I were reunited, she declared, “Mommy! Kindergarten is so much fun! Can we do it again tomorrow?” Looks like we’ll be doing it for most of the summer anyway. Rather than cancel our summer vacation so we can attend the Summer Academy for Parents, Piper put on her tiara and we went out for cupcakes.

She chose a peanut butter chocolate one because it started with P. That may not be Level Four, but it’s yummy enough for me.

More Words You Didn’t Know You Needed

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Piper continues to add to our family vocabulary. You may want to catch up on the vernacular with the first Words You Didn’t Know You Needed before trying out these new ones.

noodle-slized.  Go ahead and say it fast. You may get it that way. As in “Mom, I noodle-slized that my birthday is coming up. Let’s play Candyland.” I just noodle-slized she means “realized.” 

structions. Piper gives a lot of these. We always like to read the structions before we play Candyland. We’re hoping one day to discover a point to the game. Until then, we just do what we’re told.

Milton Bradley - CandyLand

nusually. When something happens often, it nusually happens. Piper nusually picks up after Candyland, but I noodle-sized she left the pieces all over the floor when I stepped on one in the middle of the night. Clearly, my structions weren’t clear.

chotskies. The girl loves a veggie sausage. We don’t have any idea how these became chotskies, but that’s what they are. Piper loves to munch on chotskies while playing Candyland.

Finally, I regret to inform Piper’s fans that lemolade may be a thing of the past. Blame it on Sissy.

“Piper, you know you’re drinking lemoNADE, right?”

“Yep,” Piper said, licking her lips. “I love lemolade.”

“No. It’s lemoNADE.”

“Oh. LemoNADE. Got it.”

We were considering grounding Sissy for her trespasses, but then who would blog and make Star of the Week posters and other things that Piper’s mother really should be doing?

Dam the Monster Update

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The other night I wrote a barely coherent post at 3 a.m. regarding the invasion of monsters in our home and sleepless nights. You can read it here. I was up anyway. Might as well write.

My fabulous cousin, Margee, wrote me immediately with a remedy.  I think she felt sorry for my blubbering helplessness. I’m grateful. Margee recommended that we whip up a batch of Monster Spray which rids the house of said pests. This sounded like a perfect challenge for the Sissy. I can surely mix lavender (which monsters hate, don’t you know) with water, but Sissy said it needed to look authentic. She grabbed one of her American Girl spray bottles (by the way I didn’t know that AG girls even needed spray bottles for their hair but apparently this is another department in which I fail) and made a label. I taped it on. That was my artsy contribution. There.

Piper loved it. You’d think it was Christmas around here. She was so excited to have the Monster Spray. She sprayed the beds. All of them. In case she went wandering bed to bed in the wee hours, for which she’s famous. Then she sprayed the windows and doors. These are clear entry points for monsters. Then she sprayed her pajamas. The house smelled like a spa. We were all ready for sleep.

As I was tucking her in, Piper asked, “Is the monster spray real?”

I sort of avoided the question. “Monsters aren’t real, Piper. Remember?”

“Yeah, but I like the spray. It smells good. Let’s pretend they’re real so we can spray them.”

Then Piper slept twelve straight hours.

Margee is a genius.

Guest Blogger: Raold Dahl a.k.a. Sissy

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Our guest blog is brought to you today by Sissy. Enjoy!

Okay. There’s no denying it. I love to read. I mean, if this were possible, I’d stop eating, sleeping, and going to school just to sit at home and read. Naturally, with a family full of academics, Piper’s should go on to be a great reader. But with a Piper, you can never tell.

Anyway, Piper’s certainly on the right track. Ever since I decided to be the author Roald Dahl (author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, Matilda, and more) for a school project, she’s become semi-interested in his books. Here’s me as Roald Dahl for the project, the wax museum:

The other day I decided to introduce Piper to one of Dahl’s less famous books, The Giraffe and The Pelly and Me.

Piper was enthralled. She loved every minute of it; the singing animals, the rich duke, the singing, the diamond burglar, the sweet shop, and all the singing (did I already say that?). Strangely enough, her favorite part was the robber.

“Why would he want to steal? He’s going to get caught. Duh.”

I answered as gently as I could. “Well Pipey, some people don’t make good choices.” Evidently, I didn’t need to.

“That robber should be locked up. Why didn’t his mommy yell at him?”

Well, just FYI, our mom does not yell. Don’t know where Piper got that. But evidently, in her mind, that solves everything.

Anyway, the book was a hit. She begged for me to read it every second of my free time and we finished it in three days. She asked me to re-read it the second I finished and wanted to borrow it. I still haven’t gotten it back. I’m now starting another Dahl book with her. Wish me luck.

-Sissy

Dam the Monsters

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It’s 3 a.m. and I’ve just spent the last ten minutes constructing a “monster dam” in Piper’s bed. What’s a “monster dam” you ask? It’s when you pile up all your pillows and the 200 stuffed animals from your bed into a barrier, like a beaver dam, that blocks your bottom bunk from the entry point of monsters. Monsters can’t climb over a pillow mound, apparently.

Isn’t this the same little girl who Wanted: One Monster Under the Bed?

“Every time I fall asleep my imagination sends scary stuff,” Piper whimpers.

I hold her close, willing away the monsters. “Let’s try to think happy thoughts instead,” I suggest. “What makes you happy?”

“The beach, ice cream, Sissy, when there aren’t monsters in my head.”

Then I do what moms have been doing since the advent of the first monster dream, I bring her to bed with me. It’s a desperate move. I’m sure it’s one I’ll regret in the morning. Right now all I want is sleep. I’ll take a snoring little girl with a foot in my face to get it.

“Mommy, if I close my eyes are you sure I won’t see monsters?” I’m not. But I have to say I am or there won’t be anymore sleep and we’ll both be nightmares tomorrow.

Everything’s Better With Glitter

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Piper came home from a birthday party with a craft kit. It was packed full of all the objects I forbid in this house: glitter, pom poms, multi-colored pipe cleaners, glitter glue, sparkly stick-ons, plastic straws, more glitter.

These things terrify me. I don’t get what you’re supposed to do with them. Art projects are beyond me. See Piper’s Star of the Week poster if you don’t believe me. Piper had big plans with her craft kit.

“I’ve been plotting,” she began. “I know what I’m going to do with this stuff.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “What?” I braced myself at the kitchen table for the bad news.

“My plot is to make a glitter family. Of us.”

Sissy interrupted. “I don’t think you’re using the word ‘plot’ correctly.”

“Plot means to plan,” Piper answered. “I’m planning to make a glitter family. Of us. That’s my plot.”

She had us there. Protesting seemed futile. So, I did what parenting a Piper had taught me to do: I rolled up my sleeves and sat down to learn.

And a sort of glitter family indeed emerged from this craft box of foreign objects.

The likeness is uncanny.

“See, Mom,” Piper said, packing up her craft kit. “My plot worked!”