“Mom, can we eat dinner out tonight? Like in a fancy restaurant?” Piper asked from the back seat.
“Maybe,” I said. “If you can use your best manners, promise to try something new, and eat a vegetable, then yes, we can.”
“Yeah,” she said, “we’ll just stay home.”
First, there were tippy toes. At nine months Piper raised herself up on her arches and began walking. Those of you who have seen her in person know that she’s been there ever since. It used to worry her teachers. It worried her doctors, too. But her ballet instructor stopped class once and exclaimed “Oh! Those arches!”
Then there were the tutus. Obsessed. Multi-colored. Layers of tutus. And ruffles. With sparkles. Glitter, please. Blue tutus, hot pink ones, rainbow tutus. They go with everything.
Now there is the infatuation with Clara in The Nutcracker. This all adds up, you see. It’s obvious where I’m going.
“Mom, I want to be Clara. Really be her, you know. Like in the ballet,” Piper said from the backseat as we were driving Sissy to piano lessons.
“You totally could,” Sissy agreed.
“You have to work really hard at ballet, Piper. You’d make a beautiful Clara,” I added.
“Wait,” Piper said, “does Clara wear a tutu?”
“I think so,” I said. “She’s also in her nightgown for part of the ballet.”
That made Piper giggle. Being on stage in your nightgown is just silly.
“Wait,” Piper said, “have you ever seen Grandpa in a tutu?”
“Thankfully, no.”
That made Sissy giggle. Grandpa in a tutu is just silly.
“He’d wear one on stage with me in the Nutcracker I’ll bet,” Piper said, “If I asked him pretty please.”
I took Piper shopping this afternoon for her holiday gifts. She made her list beforehand. It went like this:
1. Daddy
2. Sissy
She was pretty proud of herself for handling the money and the list. First she had to choose between a basket, a cart, or one of those in between basket things on wheels that never roll right. You guessed it.
Piper selected her gifts more carefully. She thought hard about what Daddy might like. She knew exactly what Sissy wanted. I’d share her picks here but those two may read this, you see, and Piper’s whole surprise would be ruined. And she’s trying very hard to keep the gifts a surprise. She’s giving hints, but they mostly go like this:
“Mom, guess what I got you for Christmas?”
“What?”
“A pencil. Yep. I got you a pencil.” Snicker. Snicker.
“Sissy, want to know what I bought for you?”
“Sure.”
“Socks.”
“Really, Piper? Socks?”
“Uh huh. Stinky, dirty socks.” Giggle. Giggle.
The house is officially decked. The tree is up. We’re eating on snowman plates. Holiday music is on tap. All the nativity scenes have been arranged and rearranged. Piper likes to round up all the various baby Jesus’ and puts them in a nursery together. The Josephs like to hang out in a “man cave,” which is probably not that far from the truth of time period. And the Marys? Piper has that figured out, too.
“These Marys need a girls night! They’ve got to be so bored just kneeling there watching the baby Jesus day after day after day. They need to dance!”
We haven’t yet broken it to Piper that Justin Beaver and Selema Gonez have broken up. Nor have we told her their real names. I’m not sure she even knows that they’re real people. They are just the background chatter on Disney Junior. They’re the beautiful people that you see staring back at you from the cover of People when you’re mom drags you to the grocery store. That doesn’t stop the Justin Beaver and Selema Gonez analogies though.
“Their love is like a volcano with no water,” Piper told the babysitter last night. She may be onto something there. Maybe she knows about the break up after all.
At bath time Piper tipped her toe in the warm water and declared “That water’s hotter than Selema Gonez!” The water cooled. Piper was cleaned. Then she had to get out of the tub. “Well, now I’m as cold as Selema Gomez!” she said, shivering in her towel.
“You know,” Sissy said, “They broke up. Justin and Selena. They aren’t together anymore.”
“Well,” Piper answered, “I’m just going to have to make up a song about that. So there.”
Piper requested pasta fagioli for dinner last night. Again. In the perfect Piper world, any kind of pasta with any kind of bean in any kind of broth would be served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Probably snacks, too. Here’s how I make mine:
Bring to a simmer 4 cups water, 1 can tomato paste (6 oz.), 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 tbsps dried basil, and a dash of red pepper flakes (Piper actually likes it spicy). Simmer for 30 minutes. Add 3 cans drained cannellini beans. Simmer another 30. Cook pasta (I use elbow or shells). Add salt and pepper to taste. You can also add chopped spinach or kale. Serve it all up topped with parmesan. Yum.
Last night Piper ate two heaping bowls. Then she begged for a third. Halfway through it, she ran to the couch, splayed herself on it, and announced “Just a minute! I’m digesting!”
Piper has a blog. Piper loves dogs. It was really only a matter of time before Disney caught on with its new show “Dog with a Blog.” Guess who loves it? I’ll give you a hint. She’s short. She wears tutus. She makes us laugh every single day.
Wednesday night is Girls Night in our house. We put on our pjs. We order pizza. It’s just Piper, Sissy, and me on the couch. It’s the only time during the week that we watch TV. We usually watch Cupcake Wars, but Piper asked for something different this week.
“I think you’ll like it, Mom. There’s a dog. His name is Stan. You like dogs. Stan talks. You like talking. Oh, and he blogs. You do that, too.”
I have to admit that the odds were in Piper’s favor. And it wasn’t terrible. I’m not saying I liked it. It’s corny in a “Saved by the Bell” kind of way. I’ve seen a lot worse. I’m not endorsing “Dog with a Blog” yet but Piper certainly is. “I wonder if our neighbor dogs blog,” Piper wondered. “I’ll bet that Daisy has something good to say.”
Either Piper is very bad at the telephone game or she’s hard of hearing or kindergarten is indeed a very strange place. Here are Piper’s contributions last night to the dinner conversation:
“Michael’s mom wants to change his name to Lily.”
“Really?”
“Yep, that’s what he said. I don’t know if that means he’ll be a girl or a boy now.”
“Daniel’s parents are from the past.”
“The past? Like way in the past?”
“Yep, that’s what he said. They’re hundreds of years old.”
“Our teacher times us doing our work. She only gives us thirty seconds to do each activity.”
“Wow. That’s not much time.”
“I know. It stresses me.”
“Did you know you can grow a lima bean out of your ear?”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. There’s one growing in mine right now.”
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.”
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?
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