Piper brought me flowers today. You may recognize them. They’re probably in your yard, too. Some people call them weeds. Piper says they’re beautiful; she thinks weeds are useful to hold up the really good flowers. When she thinks of me on her walk home from the park and comes trudging through the door with a fistful of these, my heart is full. It’s more than enough.
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.
Piper has a history of buying me fragile gifts and then accidentally breaking them shortly after. She gets too excited. She loves the glass rose with the ‘I Love You, Mom’ ribbon and the sparkly unicorn she painted for me herself. She loves them so much that she wants to hold them and feel them and…oops. Then I’m consoling her for breaking the precious gift. There is an entire shelf in our china cabinet displaying the shattered pieces. They’re still beautiful. Piper and I like to take them out and remember when they were whole.
Thankfully, her gift this year is unbreakable. She told me so when she presented it.
“Look, Mom! I can’t even mess this one up. See? It’s a plastic plate. I made it myself!”
“I see the mouth,” I said, “but what’s all the colored stuff in the mouth?”
“That’s what my mouth looks like when I eat a rainbow lollipop!” Of course.
And the plate was put to good use when Piper brought me a menu bright and early on Mother’s Day.
I immediately ordered fresh crepes on my new plate.
Followed by a side of cuddles. They were both delicious.
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.”
Piper announced at breakfast this morning that she’ll be attending college to become a wedding planning. Dr. Dad almost spit out his coffee. We’re not opposed to wedding planners. I’ve never actually met one, but it sounds like a worthy and fun service. We just have no idea where Piper got the idea.
“Or maybe I’ll be a veterinarian.”
Dr. Dad jumped at the chance. “That makes a lot of sense, Piper. You do love animals.”
“It’s true,” Piper said. “I like to pet every dog I meet.”
“And you’d be helping animals feel better.”
“I’ve got it!” Piper said, switching careers again, “I’m going to be a chicken!”
In the last 24 hours Piper has accumulated two skin knees, three bumps on her head, one nasty papercut, and a monkey bar “incident” that’s far too gruesome to share in polite company. She plays hard. It shows. We always buy the jumbo pack of band aids.
Tonight she was rubbing an itchy eyeball and worried outloud if maybe she didn’t have pink eye again. “You don’t have pink eye, Piper. You never did,” I told her.
“Justin said I did.”
“Justin’s wrong. You didn’t have pink eye. Remember I took you to the doctor three hours before our flight and had you checked? The doctor said it wasn’t pink eye.” Which is also what I told Justin’s dad when he hunted me down in the parking lot post holiday to let me know that Piper had spread pink eye to his whole family and ruined their vacation. I assured him that we’d share our germs some day, but we couldn’t take credit for this particular virus.
“Did I get a Zebra pack?” In Piper speak a Zebra pack means Z-pak antibiotics. It’s a mystery to her why the doctor is always mentioning her favorite zoo animal.
“You didn’t need one, P. You didn’t have pink eye.”
“How about a black eye? Do I have one of those?” Piper asked.
“Not right now you don’t.” I knocked on wood for good measure.
“I sure get a lot of black eyes. Wish they had a Zebra pack for those.”
For once, we agree.
When I picked Piper up from preschool this afternoon she was in a fit of tears because a playmate had called her a name. It was too awful to repeat, she said, so she just cried on my shoulder and snotted up my sleeve a bit. Once we got to the car, the truth came out.
“Molly called me a chatterbox!”
“Oh,” I said. I’ve learned the hard way just to listen.
“She said I don’t let anyone else talk at lunch.”
“Huh.”
“I don’t even know what a chatterbox is!”
“Hmm.”
“Mom, do you think I’m a chatterbox?”
“I think you’re wonderful, Piper.”
“Thank you, Mommy. I don’t even like that kind of cheese.”
“Cheese?”
“Chatter. The yellow kind,” Piper clarified. “I like parmesan.”
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.
When people read piperism, they usually ask me two questions:
1. Does Piper know you’re doing this?
2. Does Sissy wish she had her own blog, too?
Yes, Piper knows all about the blog. When she does something that makes us all spew our drinks at dinner, she says, “You’re going to blog about this, right?” I usually do. Tonight at dinner her Sissy prompted her to explain what piperism actually is. Piper rolled her eyes. “Duh. It’s my website.”
No, Sissy doesn’t want her own blog. She’s at that age where blasting her funnies into the universe would be devastating. Preteen privacy is to be respected. Sissy enjoys being a part of the blog, though, but she gives me a thumbs up or a thumbs down on ideas. She enjoys writing the occasional blog post herself, but since she writes better than me, we had to put a quick end to her contribution. I’m only half kidding.
Last weekend we passed the 20,000 hits mark, so I thought it might be time for a retrospective. Here are the top rated piperisms based on number of views since we began. Hope you enjoy the ride. Feel free to vote for your own in the comments. I love to hear what laugh made your day a bit lighter.
2. Even Sleeping Beauty Stalls
3. Words You Didn’t Know You Needed
4. Drunk Dialing or Something Like It
6. Soulmates
7. I’ll Raise You a Lalaloopsy
8. Sometimes You Get What You Need
10. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Thanks for reading!
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.”
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