It snowed! It snowed! It snowed!
In honor of the snow, Piper has invented a new sport. It’s called Snow Cuddling. Here’s how it goes, according to the Piper.
Step One: It has to snow.
Step Two: You look at the snow.
Step Three: You cuddle while looking at the snow.
Step Four: Repeat steps One through Three.
Two hour snow delays encourage creativity.
Last night at dinner I professed my love for jalapenos. It’s a new infatuation. I’m eating them on everything. Salads, spaghetti, fajitas, pancakes. Okay. Maybe not pancakes, but I’m seeking the heat, the spicy. I can’t seem to load on enough.
“You know why don’t you, Mom?” Sissy asked, matter of factly.
“Um. I love jalapenos?” I guessed.
“It’s because you’re getting older. Your taste buds deteriorate as you age. Aren’t you almost 40?” Oh, snap. She DID NOT. I gave her the evil eye and heaped on more jalapenos.
“It’s true, Mom,” Dr. Sissy continued. “That’s why young kids don’t like spicy food. They’re taste buds are stronger.”
“I get it, Mom,” Piper said. “I feel the same way about cannolis. If they were the last food on Earth…well, I’d eat ALL of them.”
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!”
Piper gave her first Power Point presentation last week in kindergarten. She was very excited and little nervous. She kept running to me pre presentation to let me know she was sweating. Piper is a little sweaty. Always has been. Deodorant will one day be her friend.
I blogged about her fan club attendance here. Sissy and her friends filled the tiny chairs in the back of Piper’s classroom. It was about as adorable as you can imagine.
The presentation was called “Pasta Fagioli.” Piper bounced to the front of the board when her name was called and proudly presented her research. Here goes.
Like the other kindergartners, Piper most read from her presentation. She went a little off script when she riffed about dried basil being an herb and she wasn’t sure what food group that belonged to. Then she added the interesting tomato as a fruit/vegetable debate. Then she smiled and said, “Okay, next slide please” to her tech assistant. At the end of her presentation, Piper bowed deeply. Then she sprinted to my lap. It’s not every day in kindergarten that your mom’s lap is just sitting there empty waiting for you.
After all of the presentations, Piper was assigned a reflection piece to write. She had a little help from her people.
Piper learned an important lesson over winter break. I’ll let her tell you.
I’ve learned that it’s okay to make mistakes. That Piper is wise, isn’t she?
If you’re a fan of piperism, you probably already know how much I loathe arts and crafts. Glitter gives me a panic attack. I was forbidden from puffy painting in my sorority. I just can’t make things. But Sissy and Piper love to. They’re both crafty. Sissy has her own sewing machine. She loves embroidery, whatever that means. Being a more is more kind of girl, Piper, too, loves to embellish everything in sight with color, beads, and sparkly stuff. My heart is beating faster just writing this.
I may be the only mother in North America who has never done shrinky dinks. I didn’t even know what they were. A dear friend gave Piper a kit for the holidays. I tried to hide it before she saw it, but she had a playdate the next day and added it to their fun agenda. “Mom, Alex and I can do Shrinky my Dinky tomorrow! She’ll love it!” Giggle. Snort. I was too busy laughing inappropriately to defend myself.
So, shrinky my dink they did. It turned out that I didn’t have to do much which is probably why the shrinky dinks turned out at all. Piper even hunted down colored pencils in our house. Sissy had them, of course. After the coloring, Piper and Alex watched the magic in the oven. I may have peeked. It was kind of cool.
Best part? No mess. Happy kids. Whew.
Piper is once again on a stand off with the leftovers. She would prefer every meal made from scratch and hot out of the pan just for her. Who wouldn’t? I get it. But who has time for that? I cook homemade meals 3-4 times per week. My partner cooks dinner twice a week on my teaching days because I get home late. We try to double the recipes so that there are leftovers and plenty for packed lunches. We do what we can.
Piper appreciates her food. She LOVES to eat. Sissy couldn’t care less about food. She HATES to eat. This is how I know that when it comes to meal time, it’s nature and not nurture. They’ve both been raised on a mostly healthy eat at home vegetarian diet, and they both turned out with completely different tastes and habits. Sissy would prefer seaweed and oranges as an after school snack. Piper wants a fried piece of cheese, please. I’m sure there are plenty of things I’ve screwed up for both of them, but I can’t take any credit or blame for their food intake preferences.
Still, Piper peruses our offerings with a close eye. “Is that kalamata olive bread fresh?” Piper asked this week when I offered it to her with homemade soup. I’d even slathered on some butter to moisten it a bit. “I will eat today’s bread or yesterday’s bread but nothing older than that.” Food snob, right? I was immediately transformed into my own mother and gave Piper the starving kids in Africa lecture. It wasn’t pretty.
Last night dinner was running late so I offered guacamole as an appetizer. Piper loves guacamole. She peered into the bowl. “Hmm. That looks a few hours old, Mom. Is it fresh? I mean, really fresh?”
I’ll take that as my cue that Ms. Fresh is indeed ready to join me in the kitchen. Here’s to hoping Chef Piper will soon be at my service.
Sleep seems to take so long for the Piper. It’s like almost ten whole hours that we are apart. Piper doesn’t know how we stand the moments without her. She knows it’s hard on us. So she wakes us every morning the same. Gently.
First, she scurries to the door to check for sunlight. She’s not allowed to get out of bed until the sun does. It’s also supposed to be after a number that starts with 7.
Once Piper gets the go ahead from the sun, she starts whispering. From the hallway.
She uses her best breathless Kathleen Turner voice. “Good morning,” she whispers, “the sun is awake. Good morning, family.”
Then she pounces and announces. “It’s me, people. It’s me. The Piper. Your Pipey. I’m here for the morning snuggle. Did you miss me?”
Of course we did.
Piper is busy preparing for her first Power Point presentation. You read that right. In kindergarten. This week she’ll stand before her class and an assembly of parents and present her findings on the origin of pasta fagioli, or as we call it, Piper Soup (recipe included). She did the research and created the presentation at school, but we’ve been practicing her five slides at home. It may send the cute factors into the stratosphere.
“Will you be there for the presentation, Mom?” Piper asked following one of her many practice runs.
“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it,” I said.
“Can Sissy come too?”
“Sure. I’ll email her teacher to make sure it’s okay.”
“What about Sissy’s friends? Can they come too?”
“Probably not, but I’ll certainly ask,” I promised.
Piper looked down at the printed copy of her slides. She sighed. “We’re going to need more chairs in the audience. You know, for my fan club.”
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.
piperism 