Category Archives: Antics and Adventures

Whole Foods Hater

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Who hates Whole Foods? Piper. She thinks the entire store is conspiring against her. “It’s so cold!” she complained as we shopped. “Why do they make it so cold?”

“I’m guessing because they want to keep the food fresh,” I suggested.

“No. They want me cold. This store hates me.”

“I really don’t think it’s personal, Piper.”

We let Piper and Sissy pick out their own dinners from the food bar. As we were eating, Sissy asked if Piper liked the pizza. “It’s really tasty,” Piper admitted, “but I still don’t like this place.”

“How can you dislike an entire store? Just look at my yummy salad,” Sissy said.

“Whole Foods doesn’t like me either,” Piper said.

“I’m not sure they know you, P”

“Oh, they do.”

“But you hate everything,” Sissy said.

Piper thought for a minute. Then agreed. “That’s true. I do.”

Whoonu? I Knew.

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It was a wild Friday night. Piper and I made banana bread. Then we ate all the banana bread. Okay, we shared a few creamy butter slathered slices with Sissy and her friends. Then we all gathered around a game of Whoonu. What? You’ve never played Whoonu? It’s the perfect family game. And it’s especially fun if you have visitors.

Cranium Whoonu

The idea is that you’re guessing each other’s favorite things. You draw four cards. Each card has a word like bowling, lemonade, painting your nails, back rubs, strawberries, cartoons, etc. The crowd tries to guess what things the designated person likes best. The designated person has to leave the room or promise not to peek. Then the designated person rank orders their favorites. If you guess correctly, you get the most points. Then everyone says “Whoonu?” as in “Gosh. I’ve been married to you for fifteen years and I didn’t know you loved poodles?” It’s a hoot.

Cranium Whoonu

The real fun starts when Piper feigns her disappointment in our ability to guess anything about her correctly. Suddenly she hates ballet and cartoons and tutus. She also hates playing, the color blue, and parties. Surprising, yes? Shocking, really. It’s part of her charm while playing Whoonu to be utterly upset because we people who live in her house don’t seem to know her at all. Sometimes she can work up a tear or two because she is clearly so unloved. Last night Sissy gave her “dogs,” which happens to be Piper’s favorite thing on the planet. “Sissy, how could you?” Piper shook her head in outrage.

“What? You love dogs.”

“You people don’t know me at all.”

20 Questions. Or 5. Same Thing.

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Here’s a conversation I overhead last night when Piper’s daddy was giving Piper a bath.

I was, of course, hiding in the other room checking Facebook catching up on work email.

Piper: “Dad, do you want to play 50 questions?”

Dad: “Do you mean 20 questions?”

Piper: “You’re right. That’s too many. How about 1 question?”

Dad: “Okay. One question. I’ll start. Do you ever pick your nose?”

Piper: “Yes. A lot.”

Giggle. Giggle. I think I heard Dad high five her.

Dad: “Okay. Here’s another one. What’s the last thing you think about at night?”

Piper: “My family. Or what I did at school that day.”

Dad: “Your turn.”

Piper. “That’s more than one question, you know. Don’t you know how to play this game?”

I Made This for You. Maybe.

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Piper’s latest obsession is making collages. This involves dragging things out of the craft closet, cutting everything into tiny pieces, and then gluing them onto a surface. Sometimes the surface is paper. Sometimes it’s a hat. One time it was her shoe. “I’m collaging!” she says, wiping a glue stick on Barbie’s leg and pressing red beads all over it. It looks like Barbie has an infectious disease. She should probably see a doctor. Barbie that is. As far as I can tell, Piper’s “collages” are perfectly healthy.

I blame it on the art table. A few weeks ago in a massive reorganization (I had a syllabus to write and therefore began cleaning out every drawer in the house in order to procrastinate) we moved the art table from storage to Piper’s room. She needed a space to sit and “write” and play games. The art table needed to be used. Or else.

Making a collage is how Piper likes to unwind after a long day of kindergarten. She’s been making a lot of collages. Mostly for me. My birthday is coming up so each collage becomes an early gift. That is until her dad walks in the room. Then Piper takes the collage out of my hands and presents it to him. “I made this for you, Dad!” I should protest, but I know there will be more collages. Many more.

Burger Burglar

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You might remember Piper’s obsession with Jack Handy’s Deep Thoughts. Lately, she’s been writing her own. Here’s one she made up at breakfast yesterday.

(I should also mention that Piper’s Daddy had jury duty this week. It was a robbery case. ‘Burglar’ is Piper’s favorite new word.)

“When I think of burglars, I think of burgers. And then I think ‘yum.'”

Come on. Admit it. She’s adorable, isn’t she? Funny, too. Unless you’re a burger.

Cupcakes Wars. It’s About to Get Real.

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I timed us. It took 92 minutes for Piper, Sissy, and me to make a dozen raspberry lemondade cupcakes. Yum.

Sissy and I made the cake. From scratch. With fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, and homemade raspberry puree. Piper and I made the icing. From scratch. I have powdered sugar in my hair to prove it (Piper did the pouring).

We aren’t ready for Cupcakes Wars, which happens to be our favorite show. During the first round of baking you have to make a dozen cupcakes in 30 minutes. If you make it to the final round, 1000 cupcakes in 2 hours. We aren’t prime time material.

92 minutes isn’t going to cut it. We may do okay in the taste test round, but then again, there weren’t any leftovers to share. Piper ate them all.

Can I Play?

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The hardest part of kindergarten so far is the schedule. Piper complains that all that school stuff cuts into her play time. Recess is never long enough either. So she sneaks in moments of play wherever she can.

There are horse figurines and rocks scattered on the bathroom vanity where Piper played while brushing her teeth. She kneels by her bedside and plays with her stuffed animals while I braid her hair. Toys aren’t allowed at the breakslowfast table, but Piper likes to make her vitamins talk to each other. “It’s time to leave for school!” is always met with “But I was playing!” You can’t watch screens in our house before school either (I’m a real meanie, aren’t I?) so My Little Ponies and Luke Skywalker help Piper put on her shoes. There are also her imaginary friends and the voices in her head to contend with, too.

Bath time and/or her shower necessitates an entire bowl full of plastic jungle animals. The bowl serves as a floating raft in case there is a flood. There is often a flood. Whenever Piper climbs into her booster seat in the car, she first has to remove an army of toys that she left there from the last play session. When reading, Piper has to have representative “guys” to act out the story that’s happening on the page. It takes us a long time to get through a page.

So Saturday morning when Piper wakes up at the crack of dawn and asks “Can I play?” I get to say yes and go back to sleep.

Dora Has Crabs

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We have a reader, folks. A reluctant one, but the Piper is definitely reading. I’ve caught her a few times. She read the screen at the drive up ATM from the back seat. She read a sign out her car window today, too. And this afternoon she read me her favorite Dora the Explorer book from start to finish.

Every single word. I had to bribe Piper with a chocolate chip granola bar and a promise to reread the Junie B. Jones Halloween book out loud, but it was worth it. She was quite proud of herself. Smeared with chocolate and beaming. The plot is a total nail biter. Is the baby crab going to find his mami crab? Will he give her the shell necklace? How will we get over those snapping clams? The tension is almost too much.

Spoiler Alert: the baby crab makes it to Shell Island just fine and Dora is finally free of crabs.  Whew.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

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It’s not really a surprise that Piper’s favorite part of kindergarten so far is recess. Since she still doesn’t have a “real” teacher (still waiting, tapping my foot impatiently), there is a lot of recess time. I’m not complaining. Yet. Piper has declared kindergarten awesome because “it’s as fun as preschool without all that boring reading and writing.” Grr. Reality may hit pretty hard once “real” teacher shows up.

In the mean time, Piper plays a lot of a game called “Chasing Carter.” She was astounded one day on the playground to see Carter, a former preschool classmate, on the SAME playground. How can that possibly be? He was at the OTHER school and now he’s at THIS school. This quandry amazes Piper. I’ve pointed out that she, too, was at the OTHER school and now she’s at THIS school, but Piper is not known for her rationality. Here’s how Piper describes “Chasing Carter”:

“So, I see Carter, right? Madeline and I go up to him and say ‘Hey, Carter. Wanna play?’ and he runs.”

“What do you do?”

“We chase him.”

“That sounds like fun. Did you catch him?”

“No,” Piper says, “Carter doesn’t want to play.”

“But it sounds like he’s playing. I thinking you and Madeline chasing him is the game.”

“Nope,” she says, shaking her head, “he doesn’t want to play. That’s why he runs.”

“Does he scream and run away? Or yell at you to stop chasing him?”

“Not really. He yells ‘Chasing Carter’ and runs.”

“Then what do you do?” I ask.

“I chase him.”

Dear New Kindergarten Teacher

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Dear Ms. New Kindergarten Teacher,

It was a pleasure to meet you yesterday at orientation. My daughter, Piper, is very excited to have you for her teacher, especially since you wore that blue shirt. Piper thought you needed a little bling to your outfit, but I explained that you were probably going for professional and something that made you look older than twelve. Good choice.

I understand this is your first year teaching. Who knew you’d be so lucky to get your very own kindergarten class when you just graduated from university last week? Big score. I’m rooting for you. And don’t worry too much about being stuck in the old art room rather than one of those awesome real kindergarten classrooms. Who needs their own bathroom with twenty squirmy five-year-olds? I’m sure it will be a fun class field trip down the hall to the restroom several times a day. At least you got a smaller class due to the cramped space! Gotta look on the bright side, right?

I’m sure you’ll remember our little Piper from orientation. She was the one who crawled inside her locker and shut the door? Wan’t that hilarious? You might want to consider drilling some air holes in there. I promise it won’t be the last time. In fact, if you lose Piper throughout the school day, you might check her locker first.

Piper is a little trickster. She has big plans for that locker.

As I mentioned at least a dozen times yesterday, I’m happy to help you in whatever way I can. I’ve taught in the trenches before, and I know the first year can be a wonderful roller coaster ride. And you’ve got a Piper on top of it. At least she’ll make you laugh along the way. Please let me know how I can spy  volunteer my time in the classroom. I’m looking forward to keeping my eye on you helping.

Good luck!

Sincerely,

Piper’s mom