Category Archives: Daily Dharma

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!”

Piper Dharma

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Your kids teach you things. If you listen. That’s what I’ve learned from Piper.

You should always put your toes in the water. Even if it’s cold. It’s thrilling and the iciness makes you squeal.

Take in the view. With your whole body. You might be able to reach up and touch the sky. At least you should try.

Be silly. And brave. Look yourself straight in the eye and be you.

Be patient. We’re all a work in progress.

The Call of the Chipmunk

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I’m well known in our family for saying my partner’s name a bit incessantly, perhaps even in a nasally whine. When Sissy was little she used to stand at the bottom of the steps imitating me by yelling up to her father “Joooooeeee!” We thought it was hilarious. You have to be able to laugh at yourself, especially when you’re being ridiculous.

I thought I’d gotten better. I’ve learned the soft start. I don’t nag nearly as much as I used to. I’ve let a lot of things go. See how evolved I am? Piper doesn’t see my progress, though.

“Dad, if you were a chipmunk, you’d be Alvin.”

“Why, Piper, my name starts with a ‘J’?”

“Yeah. But you and Alvin are always getting yelled at. Dave says ‘Allllviiiin!’ and Mom says ‘Jooooeeee!’ the same way.”

Pressing Rewind

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Piper has been trying on a few things lately. Some of them don’t fit. Like backtalking your Mom. It’s a minor misstep. One of her favorite playmates has more success with it than Piper’s experienced. You know what they say: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Piper just drew a zero tolerance Mom.

After a few minutes in time out today, Piper curled in my arms and said, “Can we go back to yesterday? Yesterday had ice cream and I wasn’t in trouble. Yesterday was better than today.” It’s true, baby.  Sometimes we all need a rewind button.  Or maybe a fast forward one. Or maybe just an ice cream button. That I can probably do.

Comic Love

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We spent some time on the couch Sunday morning catching up on Marvel Comics. Piper’s favorite is the old school show “Spiderman and His Amazing Friends.”

Piper likes to crawl all over the couch pretending to be Spiderman. She shoots webs and scales the ottoman. She peeks behind the furniture for green goblins. Piper’s most interested in the story, though, when the complicated love connection between Firestar and Iceman takes the screen.

This morning she asked, “Dad, I think they like each other. Do you?”

“It’s complicated when a hot girl and a cold boy want to get together,” Dad said.

“Yeah,” Piper agreed. “They could melt each other.”

Civil Disobedience in Your Birthday Suit

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Piper met Gandhi yesterday in Dupont Circle. It’s where he hangs out, apparently.

“Who’s Gandhi, Mom?”

“He was a great leader who fought for justice in India.”

“Gandhi fought?”

“Well, he practiced nonviolence as protest, but it was a way of fighting for his people.”

“How come he’s naked?”

“He’s not naked, P. He’s wearing a simple robe. Gandhi took a vow of poverty so he didn’t have a lot of clothes and stuff.”

Piper stood looking up at Gandhi for a moment.

“I’d like to be like Gandhi,” she said.

“To fight for justice? I’d be proud, Piper.”

“Specially if I could do it naked.”

What Color is Your Parachute?

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Piper’s parachute is rainbow. Of course. So yesterday morning when we walked into church and saw an enormous rainbow parachute lying on the ground outside through the glass windows, it tried Piper’s patience. What was the parachute for? When can we play with it? How long until we go outside?

On the fifth Sunday in our church, it’s an intergenerational service. On the other Sundays, the kids stay with us for “first fifteen” and then meet up with their peer groups.  Since we were all together today, the parachute had to be for all of us, right? It was. At the end of service we threw open the glass doors that lead from the main sanctuary to the gardens out back. Then, we did what everyone does when they find a rainbow parachute on the ground.

We made a circle, picked up the rainbow parachute, and started bouncing it around. It was like elementary PE class again.  Kids and adults alike were shaking the parachute and laughing. We needed a beach ball for the center. Someone shouted, “What do we do now?” With that, Piper dove underneath and ran to the middle of the mushrooming parachute. We couldn’t stop her. We wouldn’t have wanted to. Three seconds later, the other kids followed Piper. Sissy, too. It turned into a kid mosh pit.

There was more parachute shaking, more squeals of delight, more fun for everyone. Really, shouldn’t every day have a dose of pure joy?

Ours do now that we have a Piper.

When in Rome, Eat Chocolate and Data

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Have you ever wondered what children of academics do for fun? I have your answer. It’s a bit alarming. You’ll want to sit down for this.

A few weeks ago I was invited to be a part of a panel at our university (my partner and I both teach there) for the Delta Phi Epsilon Professional Foreign Service Pi Chapter Sorority. Clearly, it was fancy. They wanted me to talk about “intercultural communication” since I spent some time living and teaching in Brazil. The other professors on the panel were fancy, too.  It turned out to be a lively conversation which concluded in me making a public rant against our family policies in this country versus other societies in which I’ve lived. They gave me a brief soapbox, so I took it. The room was full of smart, earnest young women who raised the roof when I lectured on what it really means to be a working mom in a country that is often offended by public breast feeding.  They were shocked to learn that as a high school teacher in a public school I didn’t have maternity leave. And if my kids got sick, I went without pay. And that my salary exactly equaled the monthly cost of health insurance and childcare. I was unleashed. In my defense they’d asked why more women didn’t seek public office in our country. I suggested it may have to do with our policies toward families i.e. birth control, childcare, etc. I suggested that my struggles were minimal compared to a woman without an education, a job, healthcare, and an equal partner. Whew.

As a thank you for not actually baring my chest and nursing a child in front of them, the sorority gave me a beautiful pen set and a coffee mug from AU filled with chocolate. Like a good working woman, I was hiding my children outside the door to the lecture hall. My talk concluded at 7:30 p.m. and my partner had to teach at 8:00 so we were doing the childcare shuffle. You’d think Piper and Sissy would be proud of their mom, right? Raising awareness and fighting for their feminist futures, right? Nope. They saw the chocolate and clobbered me.

When we got home, they did what normal kids do: they ate the chocolate.

But then, they began sorting and collecting data.

Piper did the sorting and the eating. Sissy took notes. The children of academics know good data when they see it. So, of course, the next logical step was to prepare a presentation.  You have to share your results with other academics, you see. A power point presentation is a must.

Once the research was concluded and the data was collected, they moved on to making meaning out of all of this chocolate. Piper continued to eat the data.

And now you know what the children of academics do for fun and why you don’t ask their mommy a question unless you really want to know the answer.

All You Need is Love

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I thought Sissy was the slowest eater on the history of the planet until I had Piper. Breakfast can be a two hour ordeal.  They linger. They chat. They solve the world’s problems. As long as we never have any other plans in our life beyond two hour meals, the long eat isn’t a huge a problem.  It’s annoying, for sure. They aren’t unhappy at meal time. They love meal time. But, alas, the school day beckons.  Work won’t wait. There are things beyond our breakfast table.

Over the years I’ve tried a variety of strategies to hurry the process.  Charts. Stickers. Mean looks. Threats. A timer. My remedies shorten the meal length to a reasonable amount…for awhile…but then the minutes start creeping up again.  We joke that one day their breakfast will run into their lunch which will run into their dinner.  The girls think this is hilarious.  It doesn’t dissuade them at all.

You can imagine that after the first hour my patience can run thin.  Like it did tonight.  I pulled out my least effective parenting trick: the bribe.

“I’m setting the timer for five minutes. When it goes off, your plates will be inspected. If you’re not done, there’s no dessert.”

I’d made blondies last night, so they knew what was on the line.

Sissy watched the timer and threw down her salad. At ten seconds she triumphantly stood, cleared her plate, and loaded it into the dishwasher.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Piper glanced up at the clock, picked up another red pepper, and said,

“I don’t care about dessert anyway. I only care about love. Love doesn’t have a timer.”

Star of the Flipping Week: Dripping Sarcasm Alert

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Last Friday when I picked up Piper from preschool I learned that she was slated for Star of the Week status.  I happened to notice that the classroom was tackling the “O” as their next letter and remembered a conversation a few months back in which Piper threw herself on the ground complaining about how very much she detested the letter “O.” I don’t know what “O” ever did to her, but somewhere in the back of my brain, I remembered Star of the Week.  So, I did the unthinkable.  I asked Piper’s teacher.

“Um. Is Piper’s Star of the Week thingy coming up soon?”

I regretted the words as they slipped from my mouth.  Who doesn’t know when their child is scheduled for the illustrious Star of the Week? Sorry. I’m a little bitter over here.

“You don’t know?” Preschool teacher asked. “I sent home a notice in January.  It had all of the instructions. You’ll need to dig that out.”

Right. January. Let me think back through four months, six trips, nine house guests, and two full-time jobs. You’re right. I’m a loser mom.

“Do you think you could just give me the instructions again? My husband probably lost them.” Oh, snap.  Threw Piper’s dad under the bus. Sorry, honey.

Preschool teacher made me wait in the hall ten minutes.  It felt like detention.

“I can see you now,” she called from inside the room.

Piper and I came in, our heads hanging low.

“So, there’s the poster, the snack, and the book.  You’ll need to make a poster about Piper’s family–”

“I will? Can’t Piper do it? I mean. It’s about her, right?” Strike two.

“Sure. You can take a look at the wall to see some examples.”

The wall was covered with professionally printed Star of the Week posters. Laminated. With Glamour Shots. They were perfect.

“Okay. The poster,” I said. “Got it. And?”

“Well, Piper’s letter is “O” so you’ll need to provide a snack that begins with the letter “O,” like Oreos.”

I winced. We don’t eat Oreos.  Unless Grandma and Grandpa are in town and sneak them under the table. Preschool teacher all but rolled her eyes.

“Well, I’m sure you can think of a healthy snack that begins with the letter “O.” You can look it up online.”

I have such trouble brainstorming the beginning letters of words these days.  Thank goodness for Google. Whew.

“And Piper will need to bring in her favorite book.  Usually the kids read the books to the class, but we’ll make an exception for Piper.”

I know. What kind of a four-year-old isn’t reading yet, right? Strike three.

I had some catching up to do with my slack parenting. We headed immediately to the store for supplies. Piper was jumping up and down in the aisle when she saw this:

A poster board in Rainbow! Who knew? Then, she and Sissy spent a couple of hours Saturday afternoon printing off pictures from the blog.  As a total slacker mom I don’t have loads of spare pictures of my kids waiting for arts and crafts projects. Thus, the need for this blog. Piper cut and pasted the pictures herself and did the labeling.  Lalaloopsies made it on to the poster board somehow. They’re a big part of our family. It was way out of my hands.

Piper is pretty proud of her board. It’s hers. Really, really hers.

We also negotiated the snack from Oreos to healthy oatmeal raisin treats. Piper vetoed okra chips and oranges.

I wasn’t as successful in the book selection.  I teach in the Literature Department at a university, so I pushed the classics, but Piper chose this instead:

I’ll be biting my tongue. Why? Because Piper is Star of the Week and she’s doing it her way.