Category Archives: Daily Dharma

Sugar. Oh Honey Honey.

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Piper will do about anything to avoid the inevitable surrender to bed time. It begins with a shower, which is always too hot and too cold.  If her teeth need brushed and I’m holding the toothpaste, she runs to her dad. If Dad has the hairbrush, Piper runs to me and begs me to wrestle her tangles. Until she decides I’m doing it wrong and runs back to Dad. And so it goes. Her stall tactics are epic.

Tonight she ran from the post bath lotioning ritual. “I need a hug, Mom. Dad’s putting on too much lotion. I’m all slick!” Piper slid into my lap.

“Ah,” she exhaled, wrapping my arms around her. “That’s the sugar!”

The Grumpy Doctor Will See You Now

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Maybe I was grumpy Sunday morning. Maybe I didn’t like waking up at 7 a.m. with a demand for Orange Spice Tea and reruns of Austin and Alley on the Disney Channel. Maybe even all the cuddling didn’t distract me from my grumpiness. Maybe my grumpiness was a bit contagious when other people started rolling out of bed in the 9 o’clock range. Or maybe by then grumpiness had turned into rage. Whatever.

I made blueberry muffins for our Sunday family meeting and the four of us sat down together to share our grumpiness. Maybe I whined a little about the unfairness of the day so far. I’d had hours to stew. Sissy and Daddy looked refreshed and ready to start their day. Piper bounced. She’s a bit like Tigger and Dennis the Menace rolled into one. Most of the time it’s enduring  endearing. Sunday mornings at 7 a.m. it’s not.

At breakfast, Piper decided she wasn’t having any more of my grumpiness. “Maybe we should talk about our goals for the day,” she began, sounding a lot like me when I’m not so grumpy. “Let’s all say what we need and then we’ll all help each other. Sound good?”

“I need to play my guitar and read a little today. And we should do something fun,” Daddy began. I bit my lip. Nothing I was going to say would be positive or welcome.

“I have swim lessons at noon,” Sissy said, “and I need to play piano. Oh, and let’s go to the park for fun.”

“Mommy?” Piper asked. She was enjoying her role as moderator.

“I need to go for a run. A long run. Soon. And I need to finish planning for my classes tomorrow. Oh, and I want to be outside today.” Piper was right. I felt better just saying what I needed. I needed to stop being grumpy. I needed someone to listen. And they did. Darn it.

We mapped out a plan for the day. Time together. Time alone. Fun time. Music time. Me time. I even squeezed out a trip to DSW. It’s really hard to be grumpy there.

Burning Our Regrets

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Last week at church Piper burned her regrets from 2012. It was part of the Children’s Worship Service, which is one of my favorite things that our congregation does. One Sunday a month, in a space that’s all their own, the children come together to practice spirituality. The children light the candles. The children collect and give the offering. The children decide their own service projects. The children join hands and pray. The children recite their pledge to our community:

May we have eyes that see,

hearts that love and

hands that are willing to serve

Children squirm during the short service and it’s okay. Sometimes they switch seats and it’s okay. Sometimes they have urgent questions and it’s okay. They’re children. This is their service. I get to attend with Piper, but I’m only a visitor.

Because it’s the new year, the children decided that the service would center around new beginnings. And to begin anew sometimes you have to let go of the past. These kids are geniuses, aren’t they? We should stay out of their way and listen a little harder.

Each kid wrote a regret from 2012 on a piece of flash paper. It could be something they’d done or something that had happened to them that made them sad or something in our world that was regretful. I’m sure you can think of a few. Piper had no problem coming up with hers. On her tissue paper thin paper she wrote:

TEASING

It’s happened to her. She’s done it a few times too. We all have. And sometimes it hurts. Whether we mean for it to or not. Piper regrets teasing and she doesn’t like when she’s teased.

Piper clutched her paper tight as she got in line with the rest of the children. One by one they burned their regrets in a large urn. The flash paper gave it a dramatic effect. When you toss your paper into the small flame, a momentarily flash of fire bursts. Piper thought it had PIZAZZ, her new favorite word.

Then they talked about forgiveness and letting go of injuries. Piper had one moment of teasing that particularly hurt that she’s been holding onto. She’s talked about it daily since it happened. But after burning TEASING, I haven’t heard her mention it. She’ve moved on. Kids can do that. They live in this moment. This one. Sure, there’s a birthday party at some bounce house this weekend, but when you don’t know the days of the week, the weekend means nothing. It’s so far away. It could be tomorrow. It could be never. It’s recess. Let’s go play. Let’s try not to tease while we’re out there. And forgive a lot more in 2013. I’m following Piper’s lead.

Grading

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Piper is worried about first grade. She just started reading. She just began really writing. And she’s already anxious about an event that is 9 months away. Her eyes fill up when she talks about it. Poor baby.

“What are you worried about, P?” I asked, wiping away her tears.

“It looks so hard,” she said, “they do all this big kid stuff.”

“You do big kid stuff, already. This morning you dressed yourself and packed your snack and set the breakfast table. That’s big kid stuff.”

“That’s easy stuff, Mom. In first grade you get REAL grades. It’s not just about trying anymore.”

I thought about that. Piper already understands that effort goes a long way but eventually this world is about performance and evaluation. At five, she gets that. Sigh.

“Actually, Piper, they don’t give grades in first grade. I don’t think report cards have grades  on them until third. Instead, they give you little check marks about your progress.”

Piper’s eyes got big at that news. “Well, geez, then, why do they call it first GRADE?”

 

A Tale of Two (or Three) Giraffes Part 1

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Part 1: There was a crime spree at Piper’s school last week. At least, according to Piper.

“Mom! A little boy stole my giraffe magnet!”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I saw it in his locker. I was walking by in the hallway and I saw MY giraffe magnet in HIS locker.”

Piper told her teacher. The teacher gathered information and investigated the crime scene. Then she helped Piper retrieve the evidence. And they decided that maybe Piper shouldn’t bling out her locker with such cool stuff. Piper agreed and packed up her locker mirror, pictures of Sissy, magnetic notepads, and giraffe magnets. No reason to leave the good stuff in plain view when there are elementary school thugs roaming the halls.

“Who was the boy?” I asked.

“Some first grader,” Piper said. “Those first graders are all evil.”

A Tale of Two (or Three) Giraffes Part 2

What’s On Your Plate?

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It’s a little slow around here, especially compared to the marathon that is the holidays. Today there weren’t any presents to wrap or unwrap. No holiday cards to address (Oh, who am I kidding? Tiny Prints does all the work for me). No holiday tunes to belt out. We said goodbye to the beach and flew home with sand in our suitcases. I’m hoping the fairies show up soon and wrap each ornament individually and put away the tree. Le Sigh.

So Piper and I spent some time this afternoon mulling the new year over a bowl of spaghetti. It’s what she asked for when she came in the door from her first day back to school. “Mom, I had a great day,” Piper announced, creating a pile one foot from the door of backpack, coat, mittens, scarf, lunchbox, hat. “Now, I need some spaghetti. Bolognese sauce, please.” I understand. I had made the same thing earlier for lunch. Great minds think alike. The new year needs comfort food. Parmesan makes everything better.

Piper ate and told me about her new school project called “What’s on your plate?” where she’ll be learning how food actually gets onto her plate. It’s her first big research project. She’ll create a Power Point. She’ll present it by herself to an audience of parents. There will be cookies, of course, but she’ll know that the cookies are made from flour which comes from wheat which is grown in the ground. It’s cool stuff. I’m pretty sure I sat and made Playdoh snakes my entire kindergarten year. Times have changed.

“I’m really starting to think about my food, you know?” Piper said, gazing down into her spaghetti goodness. “Like this came from you, right?”

“I boiled the pasta and made the sauce, but I didn’t grow the wheat myself,” I admitted. “I bought the pasta from a store. Someone else grew the tomatoes.”

Piper twirled a good amount around her fork and sprinkled on more cheese, which comes from cows and is aged two years in Italy’s Parmigiano-Reggiano region.

“Well, wherever it came from, I like the sound spaghetti makes when I slurp it,” she said, smacking her lips together for effect. “It sounds like someone is KISSING!”

Merry Sickness

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It wouldn’t be the holidays if Piper weren’t sick. There was the Christmas Day when she was two that we spent in the Emergency Room. There was the Christmas Eve when her fever was so high she doesn’t remember the festivities. There was the New Years Eve of strep throat. Oh, and who could forget the holiday round of pink eye. Sigh. We have always flown and traveled for the holidays. We kiss and hug the germy masses. We spread our own kind of viral cheer. It wouldn’t be Christmas if Piper wasn’t coughing.

“How are you feeling?” I asked this morning. I checked her forehead. No fever. I looked down her throat. It wasn’t red. I put my ear to her back and listened to her cough. It’s just a cold. I gave her more vitamin C and made her a cup of her favorite Orange Spice tea.

“I feel loved,” Piper said. Cough cough. I asked after her physical health and she gave me her emotional report. “You know, Mom. You’re the right kind of mom for a girl like me.” Cough cough. Sniff. Hug.