Dog with a Blog

Posted on November 29, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

Piper has a blog. Piper loves dogs. It was really only a matter of time before Disney caught on with its new show “Dog with a Blog.” Guess who loves it? I’ll give you a hint. She’s short. She wears tutus. She makes us laugh every single day.

Wednesday night is Girls Night in our house. We put on our pjs. We order pizza. It’s just Piper, Sissy, and me on the couch. It’s the only time during the week that we watch TV. We usually watch Cupcake Wars, but Piper asked for something different this week.

“I think you’ll like it, Mom. There’s a dog. His name is Stan. You like dogs. Stan talks. You like talking. Oh, and he blogs. You do that, too.”

I have to admit that the odds were in Piper’s favor. And it wasn’t terrible. I’m not saying I liked it. It’s corny in a “Saved by the Bell” kind of way. I’ve seen a lot worse. I’m not endorsing “Dog with a Blog” yet but Piper certainly is. “I wonder if our neighbor dogs blog,” Piper wondered. “I’ll bet that Daisy has something good to say.”

Telephone Games

Posted on November 28, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

Either Piper is very bad at the telephone game or she’s hard of hearing or kindergarten is indeed a very strange place. Here are Piper’s contributions last night to the dinner conversation:

“Michael’s mom wants to change his name to Lily.”

“Really?”

“Yep, that’s what he said. I don’t know if that means he’ll be a girl or a boy now.”

“Daniel’s parents are from the past.”

“The past? Like way in the past?”

“Yep, that’s what he said. They’re hundreds of years old.”

“Our teacher times us doing our work. She only gives us thirty seconds to do each activity.”

“Wow. That’s not much time.”

“I know. It stresses me.”

“Did you know you can grow a lima bean out of your ear?”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. There’s one growing in mine right now.”

Dog Heaven

Posted on November 27, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

A Piper loves dogs. Really. She’s been talking about dogs as long as she could talk. She’s never met a dog that she didn’t fall for. The bigger, the smellier, the dirtier, the better. She likes small, yappy ones, too. One of my favorite pictures of baby Piper is of her hanging on to the underside of our dear friend’s lab, Cocoa. Piper crawled under their kitchen table to cuddle with Cocoa. Cocoa tried to get some space, but Piper held on until she was covered with enough Cocoa to blend. And every night Piper sleeps on top of Junie, an enormous stuffed black toy of questionable breed. Junie doesn’t seem to mind the drool.

Our new neighbors have dogs. We’ve met dozens. They’ve all licked Piper’s face and rolled around on the ground while we exchange pleasantries and introductions with their owners. Daisy is the dog a few doors down. Tazmanian, a chihuahua (be still Piper’s beating heart!), lives across the row from our townhome. Then there are the matching poodles. The list goes on.

“Mom, I love our new place,” Piper declared. “It’s like dog heaven. But they’re still alive.”

Telling Secrets

Posted on November 26, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

I told you before that the best part of the new house was the Under the Stairs Room. I blogged about it here.

I was wrong. The best part of the new house is the post box between Sissy and Piper’s room. That’s right. There is a hole for the passage of secret messages and such. It was a cable box, but we don’t have any of that fancy stuff so Daddy took out the wiring and left the hole. He left in one screw, too, so you could cover the hole and then slide it to the side when you have an urgent errand, like passing a pen through the wall rather than walking the three feet around the door. The post box has been put to good use. Piper likes to do this through the hole:

As you can see, Sissy added blue duct tape for some decor. They’ve already had competitions to see who could stuff the biggest thing through. Barbie dolls were too easy. Shoes were challenging. Stuffed animals got stuck.

You can also throw things through the box at your Sissy, even if she doesn’t want you to. The games and fun are endless. We haven’t even unpacked the boxes of toys yet. Who needs them when you have a hole in your wall?

Moving Day

Posted on November 25, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

This is what the 13th move looks like:

Piper stuck in a corner with the one toy I didn’t pack, the box that toy will soon be packed in, rolls of toilet paper, and a snack. Oh, and Piper’s backpack. She’ll need that Monday morning. Even if I can’t find clean clothes by then, Piper and Sissy are going to school. Don’t worry: it’s the same school. They’ll have their backpacks. And I shoved their lunchboxes inside, too, so I don’t have to unpack every box in the kitchen looking for water bottles and plastic lids Monday morning. This is what you learn from 13 moves.

It’s true that I stuck Piper in a kitchen corner out of the way of the movers. She wouldn’t have been much help under our feet lugging antique dressers up and down four flights of stairs. She showed her true colors when I asked her to pack her toys. It took her three hours to pack one box. Two hours and 59 minutes to play with the toys. One minute to toss them all in after I yelled “Are you done packing that box yet?” from the other room.

But after the packing and the moving, there was the cleaning. Piper can help with cleaning. Sissy tackled the fridge. It was her first fridge to scrub. It almost brought a tear to my neurotic Virgo eye. Sniff. I handed Piper a broom. What harm could she do? The house was empty except for the 468 miniature plastic toy bits just waiting for me to step on them.

“And what do I do with this?” Piper asked, glaring at the broom I’d put in her hands.

“You sweep. See all those toy parts? Sweep them up,” I said.

“Mom,” she said, rolling her eyes, “I wasn’t born to sweep.”

Soup for You

Posted on November 24, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

Yesterday was moving day (more on that later). In a frantic rush to clean out both my fridge and pantry, I made soup. I chopped up every single vegetable (3 carrots, 1 onion, 4 parsnips, 3 stalks of celery, 1 yellow pepper, and a handful of snap peas) and threw in as many cans of kidney beans and chopped tomatoes as the pot would hold. The cookbooks were packed so I made it up as I went.

Piper wanted to help, so I let her sprinkle in cumin, chipotle, oregano, and basil. Turns out, I was making chili. I found a can of warm beer in the back of a closet so beer bread became a side dish for the chili. Piper stirred and sniffed and tasted. She added more pepper. She said it needed salt and honey. She asked if we could shred the rest of the cheddar block to top the bowls of chili. She’s brilliant like that.

And we ate chili and hunks of fresh beer bread slathered with the last pats of butter. The movers had taken our chairs and table so we sat on the empty dining room floor. It was the best soup I’ve ever tasted. Piper has the touch.

This morning we woke up in our new house in a maze of boxes. I found 3 bowls but we couldn’t find spoons. We have cereal but the milk is still at the other house. We drank our orange juice from crystal goblets. “What do you want for breakfast, Piper? I found bagels. Or you can have dried cereal without the milk. And I have one pear.”

“Soup,” Piper said. “I want chili.”

“I can’t find the spoons.”

“I’ll use chips. Or beer bread. Or both. Yummy!”

So Piper had soup for breakfast. She wants it again for lunch. It’s becoming her thing. There are worst things. If it were up to Piper, there would always be soup for you.

Unplugged

Posted on November 21, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

We’re going to take a little break over at piperism for a few days. There are boxes to pack and there are friends to see and there is Thanksgiving food to be eaten. Hope you and yours have a restful holiday together. We’ll see you on the other side with even more funnies from the Piper, I’m sure. I’ll leave you with a turkey of thanks made by Piper. By the way, we don’t have a dog. She’s just thankful for dog.

Hide ‘n Seek

Posted on November 20, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

We’re moving in three days so we’re living among boxes. The toys are packed but that hasn’t stopped the Piper from inventing new games to play. She’s even found a favorite new place to hide.

If you knock three times and sing “Feliz Navidad,” she’ll open the door and let you in. Piper calls it the “I’m hiding in the kitchen cabinet ‘cuz it’s empty game.” Catchy, isn’t?

Sign Language

Posted on November 19, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

“Daddy taught me some sign language?” Piper said. “Want to see?”

“Of course,” I answered.

“This means beautiful.” Piper swiped her hand over her face.

“Nice.”

“And this means poop.” She stuck her thumb into her fist.

“Uh huh.”

“This is fart.” Piper wiggled her fingers beneath the sign for poop.

“Impressive. Nice work, Daddy.”

“Want to see the sign for picking your nose?” She stuck her finger up a nostril.

“That’s not a sign, Piper. You’re just picking your nose. Stop.”

“But you read the sign! It worked! See? Told you I know sign language.”

The Show Must Go On

Posted on November 18, 2012 by melissa.scholes.young

Do you remember your childhood puke pot? You know the one. You can’t hang out in the bathroom all day when you’re sick, so your mom or dad would make you lug around the puke pot just in case. They pushed it in your direction every single time you coughed. Just in case. Our family’s was a cast iron pot with a broken handle. You had to carry one size by the exposed screw. We all remember it fondly. Yesterday, Piper earned her very first puke pot.

It’s a bit too upscale for its purpose if you ask me. It’s my favorite stock pot from William Sonoma. My stews will probably never taste the same. I offered a plastic cleaning bucket, but Piper had an opinion about that. “It smells! I’m not going near that thing!” As if what she was planning on doing in it was going to smell like roses. Eww.

So everywhere Piper went, her puke pot did too. Luckily, after a few doses of antibiotics, it didn’t get much action. I knew Piper was feeling better when the puke pot got turned upside down into a stage for the My Little Pony show. Normally I dread these performances, but I was so relieved to see some energy back in the Piper and a tiny smile that I cheered Buttercup and Twinkle Toes on. And they made it through the entire show before Piper had to borrow back their stage. It was a grand finale I’ll never forget.