Category Archives: Antics and Adventures

Dog Heaven

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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

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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

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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.”

Unplugged

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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

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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

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“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

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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.

Piper Writes a Sentence

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I’ve blogged before about Piper’s loathing of all things academic. She’s the daughter of two professors. One of us has been in graduate school most of her life. Of course she hates reading and writing. Makes total sense.

But last week Piper’s teacher presented me with her very first sentence. Ta da!

 

Now I know your kindergartener wrote her first novel last year, but Piper isn’t your kindergartner. Piper wrote about shopping. “I went to Macy’s.” Which is true, in her defense. Specifically, I took her to Claire’s. In the picture she drew headbands with sparkly bows and huge flowers. Those were her big purchase. She’s worn one of those headbands every day since. She loves a sparkly headband. She loves a sparkly anything. I praised her sentence, of course. I went ga ga over the thing. Piper glowed. Then she announced “Tomorrow I’m writing about my news boots!” Which are also pretty fabulous. Just like Piper.

Kids These Days

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Just when you think you know someone. Geez.

One of the best things about kindergarten is the new friends. Piper’s made some good ones. She’s kept her old ones, too, but her new ones have brought new friends into our whole family. It’s a win-win. So we were a bit shocked last night at dinner when Piper admitted that her classmate, Madeline, may not be the best influence.

“Madeline knows all the curse words. She said she’d teach them to me, too.”

My fork stopped mid-bite. “What?” I managed.

Dad jumped right in. “Oh? Like which ones?” Inquiring minds want details.

“I think all of them,” Piper said. “How many are there?”

“There’s a lot,” Dad said. “Which ones does she know?”

“I don’t know. But she definitely knows them. I saw her writing them.”

Sissy jumped up from the table and got a pad of paper and a pen. She brought it to Piper and wrote something down. “Is this a curse word?” she asked.

“Yep,” Piper said. “That’s what Madeline can do, too. I can’t wait to use curse words. Madeline is going to teach me how.”

Sissy sighed and handed over the notepad to me. “She means cursive, folks. Not curse words. You can breathe again.”

Time Travelin’

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Daddy: If you could live in any other time period, what would it be?

Sissy: Probably somewhere in the early 1900s. I’ve read a lot of books set then. A lot of inventions were happening. It wasn’t high tech then but it was still cool.

Me: 1920s. Most of my favorite authors were writing then. Also, I’d kind of like to meet my grandma when she was young.

Piper: The time of the unicorns, for sure.

Sissy: Unicorns aren’t real. They never existed.

Piper: What? Why would you SAY something like that?