At breakfast this morning Piper told us she was going to knock the socks of her swim teacher.
“Really? How are you going to impress them?” I asked.
“Backstroke? Forward crawl?” Sissy suggested.
“Nope. I’m going to show them my special move,” Piper said. “I call it the dolphin sparkle. I invented it on my own. They’ve never seen it before. No one has. They probably won’t even recognize it.”
Our chore chart lives on. Every month or so it needs reorganized. Negotiations rule the discussion. There are a lot of gray areas.
“I cleaned my room, but I forgot to put up a magnet. Now it’s dirty again. Does that count?” Piper asked.
“It doesn’t count. You have to clean your room again,” Sissy said.
“Fine. But I’m putting up two magnets then. And then, I may just mess it up again.”
It’s spirit week at school. On Monday Piper wore her pajamas. I don’t really know what wearing your pjs to school has to do with spirt, but gosh, it’s fun. Piper and Sissy cracked themselves up getting dressed in the living room (that’s where we keep piles of clean clothes these days) changing from their night pajamas to their carefully selected day pajamas.
Today was wacky tacky day. Again, I have no clue how this promotes school spirit but who doesn’t want to dress a little crazy now and then and get away with it? Piper wore three headbands. Sissy wore ponytails on top of her head. They chose crazy mismatched clothes and two separate shoes. At dinner they reported on their wacky tacky sightings.
“Did you see the girl in her bikini?” Piper asked.
“Yep. She was on the playground with me. She looked cold,” Sissy said.
“Yeah. That skirt didn’t seem to cover much if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I do, sister.”
“Some boys in my class spiked their hair,” Piper reported.
“Mine, too. Boring.”
“Yeah. Anyone can spike their hair.”
“Did you see the girl with underwear on her head?” Sissy asked.
“I did,” Piper said. “Does that mean she wasn’t wearing any underwear you-know-where?”
“Gosh. I really hope not.”
Piper and Dad were driving to ballet lessons yesterday when Piper saw a neighborhood watch sign.
“Dad, how come burglars always dress in black?”
“They don’t want to be seen. If you were black at night, you blend in more.”
“If the house is yellow, shouldn’t the burglar wear yellow?” Piper asked.
“Maybe. But if it’s dark, they’d stand out wearing yellow. Then they might get caught.”
“If I were a burglar, I’d only break into rainbow colored houses. They’d never see me!”
Last night we were serenaded by a local high school theater group prepping for their production of Grease. We were at our favorite diner. It’s old school decor and style with new school local organic food. Our party was six and the only table big enough for us was in front of their makeshift stage. We knew it would be noisy. Fun but noisy. But the Piper loves that kind of stuff so we sat down. Piper ordered french fries and a milkshake. Then the students began singing. Right in Piper’s ear. I thought maybe she would start belting out the music, too. I thought maybe she’d jump off her chair and dance. She didn’t. She ignored them. Completely. Coloring was much more important.
Later she asked if we could see Grease again. “You know, the summer lovin’ one, Mom,” Piper said, “not that boring ancient one.”
I found this in Piper’s backpack:
So, I did what it told me to do.
“Piper, how does Lips the Fish help you read?”
“Huh? I don’t know. I wasn’t listening. I was coloring. But look! I can do fish lips!”
Piper has a healthy disregard for most conventions. Like spelling. And pronunciation.
There is the Piper way of saying something and that’s it. You can correct her all you want. Go ahead. Waste your breath.
“Piper, it’s DARTH Vader. Not DARK Vader,” Daddy said last night as he was putting her to bed.
“That’s what I said. DARK Vader. Cuz his helmet’s black.”
“No, DARTH. With a TH.”
“Uh huh. Same thing.”
On Valentine’s Day Nana sent a care package. Piper wished us all a Happy VALENTIMES Day as she opened the box. As in, it’s TIME for Valentines.
Piper unwrapped her present and shouted, “Look! I got PELZ!”
“Those are PEZ, Piper,” Sissy corrected.
“I just love PELZ,” Piper said.
“PEZ. You love PEZ.”
“Yep. I love them both.”
This afternoon when I picked Piper up from school she ran into my arms, buried her face in my neck, and declared today the worst day ever. Ever is a very long time.
“What happened, P?” I asked, kissing her soft little cheek.
“It was Media Center day and I forgot my library book.”
“So they wouldn’t let you check out a new one? I’m sorry that happened to you,” I said.
Then Piper turned on me. “It’s your fault! You should have put my library book in my bag. You should remember it’s Tuesday!”
Oh, really. My sympathies began evaporating. I took a deep breath.
“It’s your library book, honey. You’re responsible for it. And if you forget it at home, then you have to wait for next Tuesday and try again. I’m sorry that you’re upset, but it’s not okay to blame me.” Whew. I didn’t even raise my voice. It probably helped that other parents were watching. Sissy, too.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Piper said, shrugging and skipping off to the car. “A girl’s got to try, you know?”
At the Grammy’s Monday night Fun won Song of the Year for “We are Young,” which Piper has claims as her very own anthem. We delivered the good news at breakfast. Piper asked about their acceptance speech. It was entirely unfair that she had to sleep through the…fun.
“They toured for 12 years,” Daddy said. “That’s a lot of hard work.”
“Wow,” Piper agreed. “That’s almost 100.”
“Well, not quite. Hard work pays off, though. It took me 12 years to achieve my biggest goal, too,” Daddy said, puffing out his chest a little at the Dr. title attached to his name. “Do you know what my big goal in life was, Piper?”
“To marry Mommy?” Piper concluded.
Piper thinks you might be following her. She knows you love the blog. You may love it so much that you’re trying to get secret pictures of her in action. Walking down the street. Sitting in the car. Dancing on the playground. You can’t get enough.
Yesterday as we were leaving school Piper saw a woman on her front porch with a camera. There was only one possible explanation.
“Ugh!” Piper exclaimed. “The paparazzi follow me everywhere!”
piperism 